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All articles are available for download at www.connect-world.com CONTENTS
Mobile broadband
Mobile broadband evolution 4
by Alan Hadden, President, Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA)

Business solutions
The economy and ICT innovation 8
by Bernard Yee, Vice President, AT&T Asia Pacific
4 8 10 13
Software and services
Delivering software-plus-services 10
by Geoff Thomas, General Manager, Communications Sector, Asia Pacific, Greater China,
India and Japan, Microsoft Corporation

16 20 23 25 Enterprise mobility
Mobilising the workforce 13
by Paul Blinkhorn, Australia Country Manager, Vice President of Motorola’s Enterprise
Mobility business, Australia and New Zealand and Asia-Pacific Channels

16
28 31 34 37 Mobile business communications
by Tan Choon Seng, Vice-President, Asia-Pacific, Applications & Software Sales, Avaya

WiMAX
WiMAX: boon for businesses everywhere 20
by Michael Lai, CEO Packet One Networks Sdn Bhd.

40 42 44 46 Converged TV
The next television revolution 23
by Dario Choi, Executive VP and General Manager, Tandberg Television Asia-Pacific;
Ericsson Group

Mobile messaging
The power of messaging 25
by Boudewijn Pesch, Managing Director, Acision Asia Pacific

Mobile banking
Mobile banking - sense, dollars, and cents 28
by Chris Carr, Vice President, Sales, Southeast Asia Pacific, Nokia
Connections Mobile services
From the Editor-In-Chief’s desk 2 Mobile services on the move in Asia Pacific 31
by Fredric J. Morris by Dr Abdul Razaque Memon, Director, Solution Marketing, Application Business Division,
Alcatel-Lucent Asia Pacific
Imprint 2
Virtual computing
Subscription 48
Virtualization trends in ICT for business 34
by Andrew Dutton, General Manager - VMware Asia Pacific

Advertorials Infrastructure collaboration

Nokia Siemens Networks 5 Collaboration - the catalyst for growth 37
Mera Systems 6 by Wilfred Kwan, Chief Technology Officer, Pacnet
Singapore Exhibition Services 17
Network sharing
Network sharing in Asia 40
Advertisements by Simon Kong, Business Development Director, Asia Pacific region, Omnix Software
Kathrein IFC
mcTEL 3 Network support
ITU World 2009 11 Product innovation, performance and support 42
Broadband World Forum Europe 2009 14 by Adam Judd, Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific, Juniper Networks
Wirelss & Newworks Comm China 2009 19
Vietnam Comm 2009
Broadband standards
22 Standards for Broadband Convergence 44
Futuecom 27 by Robin Mersh, Broadband Forum Chief Operating Officer
Frost & Sullivan GIL 2009 Asia Pacific 30
Connect 2009 35 Next-generation networks
UPA Plug into Profit 09 38 Solutions for next generation wireless 46
Ericsson IBC by Ben Cardwell, VP, Asia Pacific and China, Andrew Wireless Solutions
Nokia Siemens Networks OBC

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 01

 CONNECTIONS
Connections

Information and communications technologies, ICTs, have always had a significant impact
upon businesses. Today, they can be the business. Virtual businesses abound and even
their services or products can be virtual; only the money is real. The savings and earnings
that advanced ICTs bring to businesses, both real and virtual, are transforming business
models, creating new markets and providing new opportunities for millions of workers.
The Asia Pacific region has long been among the earliest adopters and most effective users
of technology. This issue of Connect-World Asia Pacific will explore the use and promise
of ICTs for business in the region.

This issue of Connect-World Asia-Pacific II 2009, dedicated to information and

communication business technology, examines the implications of these far-reaching
converged systems and the impact they have not only upon users, but upon the complex
ecosystem that will make these innovative communications systems possible - the
networks, communications equipment, user devices, software and business applications.

The theme of this issue of Connect-Word Asia-Pacific II is - Convergence, communications

and business innovation.

Fredric J. Morris,
Editor-in-Chief,
Connect-World

Editor-in-Chief: Fredric J. Morris fredric.morris@connect-world.com

Publisher: David Nunes david.nunes@connect-world.com

Editorial Department: editorial@connect-world.com

Connect-World is published under licence
by WORLD INFOCOMMS LTD Production Department: production@connect-world.com
Executive Office:
• Global House, 12 Albert Road, Sales Department: sales@connect-world.com
London E16 2DW, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7540 0876 • Fax: +44 20 7474 0090 Administration Department: admin@connect-world.com
email: info@connect-world.com • URL: www.connect-world.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means elec-
tronical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission from the publishers. The content of this publication is based
on best knowledge and information available at the time of publication. No responsibility for any injury, death, loss, damage or delay, however
caused, resulting from the use of the material can be accepted by the publishers or others associated with its preparation. The publishers neither
accept responsibility for, nor necessarily agree with, the views expressed by contributors.

ISSN 1462-2939 M

02 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009

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 Mobile broadband

Mobile broadband evolution

by Alan Hadden, President, Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA)

Mobile broadband’s rapid adoption is due to the standardisation of high-speed transmission

technology, and to the widespread availability of lower-cost, more ‘intelligent’ network
equipment and user devices. It is also due to growing mobile Internet access for services
including social networking and multi-media applications. Regulators throughout the world
are freeing spectrum for mobile broadband. The switch from analogue to digital TV will make
significant amounts of spectrum available, the so-called ‘digital dividend’, which can be used
for mobile broadband.

Alan Hadden has been President of the GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) since its formation in 1998; he has 22 years’
experience in the mobile communications industry. Previously, Mr Hadden was on the senior management team of a UK PCN/GSM
1800 operator and involved in the start-up, launch, and expansion phases. He assisted key stakeholders and overseas regulators to
establish 1,800 MHz as a mainstream band internationally for cellular services and with the market entry of new mobile businesses. Mr
Hadden represented the company in key UK industry forums, and internationally at ETSI, the GSM Association and the UMTS Forum.
Before then, Mr Hadden was Industrial Advisor to the UK communications regulator, where he represented views influencing regulation
and standardization at national and international level. Mr Hadden’s second book, Mobile Broadband with HSPA, LTE and Beyond:
Services, Markets and Business Opportunities, will be published later this year.

The mobile industry is engaged in a huge
global undertaking to make the Internet
mobile. It is true that for some years we
had the ability to connect to the Internet
while on the move or away from our office
or home, but this was not always smooth or
compelling, and in most cases did not match
the experience of fixed line access. All that
changed as the capabilities and performance
of initial 3G systems were extended to deliver
a true mobile broadband experience.
3G/WCDMA represented the first step into
mobile broadband; the first commercial
system, launched in Japan in October 2001,
was capable of 384 kbps peak data speed in
the downlink direction. HSPA - High Speed
Packet Access, the first evolution of 3G/
WCDMA, is the leading 3G system globally,
with well over 70 per cent share of the
commercial networks market. Around 95 per
cent of the world’s 3G/WCDMA networks take up of the mobile broadband market. We
have been upgraded for HSPA - there are now have identified 1,409 HSPA user devices on
more than 250 commercial HSPA networks in the market - a 121 per cent growth since April
110 countries. More than 70 per cent of HSPA 2008. The number of suppliers increased from
networks support peak downlink speeds of at 110 to 169 companies in the same period.
least 3.6 Mbps, including more than one-third
of networks which can support 7.2 Mbps or
even higher data throughput.
Users are flocking to mobile broadband.
Operators throughout the world report that
HSPA is driving higher data usage and ARPU
growth on their networks. There are now
more than 100 million HSPA subscriptions
worldwide; it is only three years since the first
HSPA network was launched.
The early availability and rapid expansion of
the supporting eco-system, particularly in the HSPA network deployments worldwide
range and choice of HSPA user devices, have (GSA: January 2009)
contributed enormously to the spread and

04 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009

SW
 PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

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 Carrier grade switching and
billing solutions
For wholesale and retail carriers

Carrier
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06 n
06 Asia-Pacific issue
n Asia-Pacific issue II
II 2009
2009

Mobile phones including smartphones 575
UMPCs 23
PC data cards and embedded modules 149
Notebooks 307
USB modems 189
Wireless routers/gateways 131
Femtocells 19
PMPs 10
Cameras with HSPA connectivity 6 WCDMA systems including HSPA are
Total 1409
HSPA devices by form factor (GSA: March 2009)
Sixty-eight HSPA networks entered
commercial service in 2008. The introduction
in 2009 of Evolved HSPA systems, also
known as eHSPA or HSPA+, increases
HSPA’s maximum peak downlink speed to 21
Mbps. The previous maximum peak was 14.4
Mbps. HSPA+ uses a higher-order modulation
called 64QAM, which calls for a network
software upgrade. The first HSPA+ systems
entered commercial service in Australia and
Austria, and several more will follow during
2009. Here are now six user devices that
support HSPA+.
In the future, HSPA Evolution will use
Multiple-Input/Multiple-Output (MIMO)
antenna technologies, and multi-carrier
functionality. With these improvements, even
higher downlink speeds will be possible.
MIMO will provide 42 Mbps peak downlink
on a 5 MHz carrier when devices that support
this speed become available. On the uplink,
today’s peak of 5.76 Mbps increases to 11
Mbps using HSPA+ 16 QAM modulation
(instead of QPSK), and further evolution
beyond 20 Mbps is expected.
LTE (Long Term Evolution)
LTE will significantly improve network
efficiency and offer higher capacity, data
rate, throughput enhancements and reduced
latency; it will support new services and
features requiring higher levels of capability
and performance. LTE enhances such
demanding applications as interactive TV,
mobile video blogging, advanced games and
professional services. LTE reduces the cost
per Gigabyte delivered, which is essential
for addressing the mass market and forecast
traffic growth. The new system supports
a full IP-based network, and works with
legacy 3GPP systems (GSM, GPRS/EDGE,
WCDMA-HSPA) and other radio access
technologies.
LTE is the natural migration choice for GSM/
HSPA network operators; it is also the next
generation mobile broadband system of choice
of many leading CDMA operators, which will
be at the forefront of service introduction.
LTE is on track, infrastructure vendors are
now shipping LTE-compatible solutions
to customers in Europe, Asia and North
America. A GSA survey confirmed that 26
network operators have committed to deploy
3GPP LTE systems. Up to ten LTE networks
will launch commercial services in Asia,
Europe and North America during 2010.
Mobile broadband spectrum
deployed in the 850, 900, 1700, 1800, 1900,
and 2100 MHz bands. Most 3G/HSPA mobile
broadband networks operate in the 2100 MHz
band. New spectrum in the IMT extension
band 2.50 - 2.69 GHz 2.6 GHz band is
becoming available and of particular interest
for high capacity mobile broadband access
using such LTE.
Using lower frequencies, e.g. 900 MHz or 850
MHz, provides a much larger coverage area
compared to 2100 MHz. The 900 MHz band
is widely used by GSM systems throughout
Europe, Russia and CIS countries, Asia
Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. 3G/HSPA
deployment in the 900 MHz band (UMTS900)
significantly reduces the number of cell sites
needed to cover rural and suburban areas,
which means substantial CAPEX and OPEX
savings for 3G deployments. Many operators
choose the complementary combination of
900 MHz and 2100 MHz, deploying 3G/
HSPA in the 900 MHz band for lower cost
wide area coverage, and 3G/HSPA in the 2100
MHz band for capacity in urban areas. Similar
cost and coverage benefits apply for UMTS
deployments in the 850 MHz band, such as
those in Australia, across the Americas, and
in some Asian markets. In the Americas,
operators may also utilize the 1900 MHz
band, or the 850/1900 MHz combination. In
some countries, 900 MHz is also allocated. In
Australia, Telstra has commercially launched
the world’s biggest UMTS850 network using
the 2100 MH band, while Optus uses the
900/2100 MHz combination. The 850 MHz
spectrum is also available in Africa, Russia,
the Middle East and Asia.
Deployment of WCDMA-HSPA systems
in the 900 MHz band requires regulatory
approval in many countries, since this band is
typically reserved for GSM use. Regulatory
actions have been taken, or are underway
in several markets and many countries
now permit UMTS900 systems. By March
2009, eight UMTS900 systems had entered
commercial service: Elisa (Estonia), Elisa
(Finland), DNA (Finland), AIS (Thailand),
Optus (Australia), Vodafone (New Zealand),
Siminn (Iceland) and Digitel (Venezuela).
Several more networks are in deployment.
According to the GSA, 115 UMTS900
devices have been launched. UMTS900 is on
Mobile Mobile
payment
Mobilesystems
access
broadband
the roadmap for most device manufacturers,
and is becoming standard in most new 3G
phones and data modems destined for Asian
and European markets.
The digital dividend
The ‘digital dividend’ refers to spectrum in
the 470 - 862 MHz bands currently used for
TV broadcasting that will become available
as a result of the switch from analogue to
digital terrestrial transmissions. In Europe,
Belgium (Flanders region), Finland,
Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands,
Sweden have switched over from analogue to
digital TV transmissions. The EU 2012 target
for switching-off analogue TV is expected
to be met by almost all member states.
Mobile network operators and governments
expect it will be more economical to deploy
mobile broadband in rural areas due to the
favourable propagation characteristics of
lower frequencies. In urban areas, indoor
coverage also improves using these lower
frequencies. By using part of the digital
dividend frequencies, the mobile industry
could dramatically speed up the rollout
of broadband communications, increase
coverage, and boost economic activity and
productivity. This would still leave plenty
of spectrum for broadcasters to develop and
enhance their digital TV services.
The International Telecommunication
Union (ITU) World Radiocommunication
Conference WRC-07 allocated the upper UHF
sub-band of 790-862 MHz to Mobile Service
for IMT use on a Primary basis in Region 1,
which includes Europe, Africa, Middle East,
Russia, and CIS countries. Finland, France,
Sweden and Switzerland have confirmed
they will allocate spectrum in the 790-862
MHz band for mobile broadband services.
Consultations are underway in many other
countries, including Germany and the UK.
In North America, US implementation of
the digital dividend began with the auction
in 2008 of spectrum in the 700 MHz band.
Verizon Wireless has confirmed plans to roll
out LTE in the frequencies they obtained in
that auction, as will AT&T Mobility.
Users have confirmed their appetite for mobile
broadband. Current demand is being satisfied
with HSPA. In 2009, further improvements
in network efficiency and performance arrive
with HSPA+. LTE is the next step and is
necessary for growth and reducing costs, with
first networks expected to launch in 2010.
Ensuring access to new spectrum including
2.6 GHz and digital dividend frequencies is
critical to supporting growth and extending
broadband access to mass markets. n
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 07
 Business solutions

The economy and ICT innovation

by Bernard Yee, Vice President, AT&T Asia Pacific

Companies are retrenching to face the economic slowdown. They are favouring solutions that
substitute capital expenditures for operational expenditures. Services such as utility computing
and managed IT services, which scale up - or down - instantly to meet changing demand and are
paid for according to usage are growing in popularity. The use of communications technologies
that enhance productivity and accelerate business processes, such as unified communications
and videoconferencing - which can reduce travel - are growing as well.

Bernard Yee, Vice President of AT&T Asia Pacific, is responsible for managing the direct sales and channel sales teams across 13 markets
in the region, including Japan. Mr Yee has held the various management positions within AT&T including Regional Managing Director
of Consumer Markets Division of AT&T Asia Pacific and head of Marketing and Product Management. Mr Yee joined the Internet and
Online Services Division of AT&T Asia Pacific and was soon promoted to head the company’s merger and acquisition activities in Asia
Pacific.

Mr Yee holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Auckland and is a Chartered Accountant of the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of New Zealand.

It is no secret that in these challenging
economic conditions, companies are
retrenching their operations and looking
to do more with the resources already at
their disposal, so IT budgets are constantly
scrutinized. Companies are looking at ways
of moving capital expenditure to operating
expenses to meet the same business
goals. Chief information officers (CIO) of
multinational companies (MNCs) face even
tougher challenges in these times. They
need cost-effective IT solutions to deploy
seamlessly across multiple locations in a
consistent manner.
As MNCs look to meet these challenges,
CIOs are re-evaluating the way they manage
their current resources. The outcome is likely
to be a shift in their procurement strategy
favouring flexible, capital-light approaches,
such as utility computing and managed IT
services. At the same time, with a greater
emphasis placed on doing business more
efficiently, there is likely to be a renewed
focus on communications technologies with
the potential to enhance productivity and
accelerate business processes, such as unified
communications and videoconferencing.
Utility computing
Among these technology solutions, perhaps
the most compelling is utility computing.
It is part of a broader trend that of remotely
distributing computing resources to
individuals and organizations. In simple terms,
the idea behind utility computing is to provide
enterprises with access to IT resources, on
demand, over the network. Enterprises pay for
only what they need. Utility computing can
take many forms. Telecom companies offer
enterprise-class value added and managed
services through Internet data centres,
allowing MNCs to flexibly scale up and
down their computing, storage or web hosting
capacities as the need arises. These services
also include managed networking, managed
communications environment, security
management and application acceleration.
Most enterprises have seasonal business
cycles, but their need for computing resources
can fluctuate for a variety of reasons and is
often unpredictable. By providing metered,

08 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009


on-demand IT resources, utility computing
allows companies to save costs, avoid
having to make large capital outlays on IT
infrastructure and squeeze a better return on
investment from their existing infrastructure.
These on-demand services could prove useful,
for example, to online retailers gearing up for
holiday sales, employers with annual open
enrolment for employee benefits or game
publishers running online games.
Virtualization as a catalyst
Utility computing is certainly not a new
concept, but innovation and the proliferation
of storage and server virtualization is making
this service increasingly viable for MNCs.
For most MNCs with globally distributed
operations, building and managing multiple
data centres is probably the single-most
complex, resource draining and expensive
component of the IT environment.
Virtualization has become the key to making
the most efficient use of those assets.
Virtualization enables higher utilization of
existing computing and storage resources.
It allows MNCs to gain seamless access
to alternative resources, such as utility
computing services, over the network. The
result is an IT environment with higher
availability and scalability.
Unified communications bring it together
As the current economic environment has
driven many enterprises to tighten travel
budgets, technologies that help MNCs
make better use of their human resources
by facilitating remote collaboration and
enhancing worker productivity have also
gained prominence. Unified communications
is one area that seems particularly compelling,
given its potential for creating a seamless
collaboration platform.
Unified communications aims to integrate
all forms of communications and the
migration of all communications to data-
centric networks has facilitated this goal. As
the adoption of Internet-based telephony and
videoconferencing has grown along with web-
based collaborations tools, an opportunity has
emerged for the development of a common
platform on which voice, video and text-
based communications tools, like email, can
all reside together to create a unified user
experience.
By integrating their disparate communications
mediums, enterprises can reduce
communications-based disruptions and
enhance collaboration among workers,
leading to greater productivity. In addition,
unified communications solutions can be
integrated with business applications such
as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and
customer relationship management (CRM);
this greatly enhances the ease with which
workers can access business data, especially
outside of the office. This could ultimately
enhance operational efficiency and customer
service. According to research firm Gartner,
as unified communications environments
become more pervasive, it will reduce the
number of different communications vendors
with which a typical organization works by at
least 50 per cent.
Videoconferencing
Among the communications tools available
to MNCs, high definition videoconferencing
technology such as Cisco’s telepresence
solution, may have a greater role to play as
workforce and travel budgets shrink. Thanks
to a convergence of factors - including
improvements in video streaming technology,
the falling prices of high definition video
display panels and the proliferation of
broadband connections - businesses can now
offer an exceptionally lifelike and immersive
videoconferencing experience. This translates
to reductions in travel expenses, a smaller
carbon footprint and hence a more sustainable
business. In addition to enhancing the virtual
meeting experience, the fine detail delivered
by high definition videoconferencing also
opens the doors for its use in a variety of
critical applications by a wide range of
industries. A garment manufacturer in China
could, for example, use high definition
videoconferencing to highlight - down to the
last fibre - its craftsmanship to a client in the
United States, or remotely collaborate in real
time with design teams in other countries
to put the finishing touches on a product. In
healthcare, high definition videoconferencing
can make medical specialists more productive
by allowing them to conduct visual diagnosis
of patients or remotely provide advice in live
surgical operations.
In the educational sector, pin sharp, life-
size videoconferencing images can facilitate
a more effective remote learning process.
These are only a handful of the ways in which
videoconferencing can help many different
types of businesses work more efficiently
and effectively. According to a study by Frost
& Sullivan, the global videoconferencing
systems and services market is likely to
expand from US$1.63 billion in 2007 to
US$4.2 billion by 2012.
MNCs need to adopt a flexible and cost-
effective IT procurement approach that
MobileBusiness
payment
Mobilesystems
access
solutions
transforms operational processes to do
work more efficiently. The growing demand
for managed IT services and advanced
communications solutions serves as proof that
they are responding to this challenge.
On the other hand, the challenge for managed
IT service providers will be to develop
solutions which are tailored to fit the needs of
different industry verticals, customizable for
individual enterprises, and tightly integrated
into business processes, while adhering to an
IT best practice framework.
In the coming years, there is likely to be
progress on this front, as managed IT service
providers continue to innovate and create
value-added services designed to help improve
application performance, IT governance
and business value creation. In so doing, we
expect managed IT service providers to move
up the value chain to become the trusted IT
partner to MNCs over the longer term through
the managed and hosted services market. n
Connect-World is
celebrating its 12th
anniversary
Through the years, Connect-
World’s authors told of the rise
of mobile, of fibre, of wireless
and of broadband; they told of
the dot.com meltdown, of
digital inclusion and conver-
gence, of standards and break-
throughs, the rise of IP and
the fall of switching and of the
regulatory turnaround.
In every issue of Connect-World
heads of state, ministers and
regulators, heads of
international institutions and
leaders of industry speak of
what the ICT revolution, as it
happens, means to the people
in their regions of the world.
www.connect-world.com
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 09
 Software and services

Delivering software-plus-services
by Geoff Thomas, General Manager, Communications Sector, Asia Pacific, Greater China, India and Japan,
Microsoft Corporation

The ‘connected lifestyle’ depends upon user-centric s voice, video and data services integrated
into innovative Web services, available on a wide variety of fixed and mobile devices, that
expand and facilitate the user’s personal business and social lives. Such services will help
service providers attract and retain individual and enterprises subscribers. Increasingly, these
services will be resident on the Web, - the ‘cloud’, not the device, as software as a service
(SaaS); and operators will offer a combination of software plus services.

Geoff Thomas is the General Manager for Asia Pacific, Greater China, India and Japan within the Communications Sector at Microsoft.
He is responsible for sales and marketing, business development, consulting and support services for leading telecommunications
companies, service providers, and media and entertainment companies in Asia. Mr Thomas is a Microsoft veteran of over 17 years;
since joining Microsoft in Sydney as an account manager in 1991, he has held various positions in Asia Pacific and the US, spanning the
enterprise, SMB and channel segments.

Geoff Thomas holds a Bachelor of Business degree from Kuring-gai College of Advanced Education in Sydney, Australia, majoring in
accounting and finance.

The trend towards a connected lifestyle is
already a reality today - people are tapping
the networked world for everything, from
remote access to business email, to shopping
and research, to watching a movie or catching
up with friends. They want to stay connected
with each other and to information, anywhere
and at any time. The connected lifestyle
presents a world in which information and
entertainment can flow to the user, where,
when and how they want it.
We know that traditional telecommunications
services such as voice, video and data are
being integrated with innovative Web services
to create myriad combinations of services.
Service providers are also beginning to
deliver connected services over a wide range
of devices, to further drive demand.
To succeed in this connected age, service
providers need to focus on connecting people
and being more user-centric. What this means
is that all devices must be ‘service connected’,
whether it is a PC, mobile phone or a
handheld device. This will allow people to
get the latest software, browsing applications
and data easily and, as well, allow them to
personalize content to their specific interests
and lifestyles.
In the highly competitive telecoms market,
innovative services will be a key differentiator
to help service providers retain and attract
subscribers. The key to delivering these
unique, personalized services is software,
and service providers will increasingly rely
on the magic of software to deliver a range
of services to large enterprises, small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) and consumers.
We envisage operators offering hundreds
of services that bring together different
applications and content, from a variety of
sources, to form composite services; in this
world, the combinations of potential new
services are nearly limitless. We see the
telecommunications industry continuing to
evolve and service providers adapting new
ways in which they approach the services’
marketplace to expand their offerings to end-
users.
Services in the Cloud
Vanson Bourne Ltd conducted a global study
in 2008 to look at how small businesses use
and manage their IT, as well as their attitudes
toward hosted IT services. The study took a
snapshot of small business IT behaviour in 11
countries worldwide - Australia, China, Japan,
France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Russia,
United Kingdom, Canada, and the USA. The
results showed that SMEs in the Asia Pacific
have a good understanding of IT and how to
use IT in their business.

10 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009

5_9_
 OCTOBER 5 TH

9 2009
TO TH

COULD BE
THE MOST
PRODUCTIVE
WEEK...

...OF
YOUR
PROFESSIONAL
LIFE !

But only if you spend that week at ITU Telecom World 2009. Because no other event offers such a wide range of ideas,
knowledge and experience. No other event gives you direct access to the full cross-section of ICT decision-makers
from government and industry. And no other event will be more essential in helping you plot a strategic course in
the rapidly-evolving ICT industry. In a world where knowledge is currency and meeting the right people is gold,
this global summit is sure to provide you with the best return on investment. Geneva, 5-9 October 2009 – don’t miss it.

www.itu.int/world2009

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 11

5_9_october_2009_210X297mm.indd 1 4.12.2008 17:43:40

 Software and services
Most businesses in China, Australia and Japan
(83 per cent, 60 per cent and 55 per cent,
respectively) agreed that IT was important
for most small businesses. They currently
used mobile email services, and recognized
software as a service (SaaS) as a cost efficient
way of getting business-class communications
services without large investments. Not only
did these SMEs believe that buying software
on a subscription basis reduced the reliance
on IT skills and offer enterprise-class security
protection, they also felt that SaaS allowed
them to focus on their core business priorities.
These findings were reinforced by a recent
IDC report that anticipated cloud computing
services to increase in 2009. The firm also
anticipated that services in the cloud will form
a quarter to a third of all incremental global
IT spending by 20121. Cloud computing is a
general concept that incorporates SaaS, Web
2.0 and other recent, well-known technology
trends using the Internet. This mode of
acquiring and consuming IT services on a
subscription basis has become ever more
apparent at this time of global economic
uncertainty.
Software-plus-services
As businesses become more Internet-literate,
and the case for using online software will
drive strong demand for service providers,
we can expect an increase in Software-plus-
Services that will bring together a set of both
on-premise and service-based IT capabilities,
enabling service providers to optimize the
portfolio of software and services across their
network infrastructure.
For example, SingTel and Telstra have chosen
to broaden their service offerings in the SaaS
space.
SingTel’s Hosted BizExchange service, a
hosted messaging and collaboration solution
offers subscribers all the rich features and
functions of a corporate mail system.
Telstra is working to bring together business
software applications, mobile services
and devices, and integrated computer and
telephony services over Telstra’s Next IP™
and Next G™ networks.
The alliance will enable Australian businesses
and government organizations to access
business software applications hosted ‘in
the cloud’ and made available through a
simple per-user subscription service; access
corporate-grade, secure all-in-one mobile
email, calendar, contacts, web browser,
business software and mobile phone solutions;
and integrate telephony services with familiar
email applications.
1. IDC Predicts Current Economic Crisis Still Provides For Pockets Of Opportunities Within The Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) Region in 2009, IDC, Dec 12, 2008,
http://www.idc.com/AP/pressrelease.jsp?containerId=prSG21576608
12 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009
The first solution from this alliance is the
Telstra Mobile User interface. It will give
Australian customers simple ‘one click’
access to the applications and services they
regularly use via a set of touch-enabled
menus and scrolling applets that users can
flick across their home screen. The interface
will bring the most popular applications to
the home screen, including address book and
email, mobile office applications and Telstra’s
mobile services including Big Pond, Mobile
FOXTEL from Telstra and Sensis Search.
Customized touch applets such as Picture
Show, World Clock and Tasks will also be
available on the new interface providing
targeted information to Australian consumer
and business customers.
In India, Bharti Airtel launched an online
desktop that gives access to a personal virtual
desktop from any computer connected to the
Internet, allowing users to rent software per
month. This initiative will pave the way for
easy and affordable access to computing and
broadband in India, and will be available
to all Airtel broadband customers across 95
cities in the country.
Next generation services
To make things even more exciting for
operators and mobile users, services recently
announced at the Mobile World Congress will
enable people to access, manage and back
up the personal information on their devices
to a password-protected Web-based service.
With automatic syncing and backup, users
can ensure that their contacts, appointments,
text messages and other information are up to
date and easily restored should they lose or
upgrade their phones. Consumers will also be
able to automatically upload photos and video
from their phones directly to a Web-based
service, making it simple to preserve content
that, in the past, would have lived and died on
the phone.
In addition, consumers can easily find, install
and experience applications that fit their needs
and make the phone truly personal using Web-
based services that provide rich, integrated,
sites for searching, browsing and purchasing
mobile applications from mobile phones or
from PCs.
A service ecosystem is needed to create
and bring to market the most compelling
services, to bring together service providers
with independent software vendors (ISVs),
developers, system integrators and network
equipment providers. Such an ecosystem will
establish a global marketplace for services
where developers and other players can
collaborate to drive innovation.
The SingTel-sponsored Mobile Connected
Services Accelerator is one such initiative.
ISVs were shortlisted to incubate, and
ultimately commercialize, new types of
consumer, business and mobile services for
smartphones and mobile broadband PCs. As
a result ISVs, V3 Teletech and Formotus,
developed two new mobile LBS applications
for the logistics and transportation sector.
Celcom in Malaysia is also participating in a
programme to incubate and nurture Malaysian
mobile application developers, and provide
them with compelling business opportunities.
The way forward
Service syndication seems the most logical
and sustainable business opportunity to
address growing demand for more easily
consumable services. Syndication describes
the business agreements between the various
providers and vendors in the services supply
chain that come together to provide a service.
These agreements provide a definition of
service, utilization of the service, commercial
agreements, and any applicable service level
agreements resulting in a seamless end user
experience. n
Connect-World is
celebrating its 12th
anniversary
Through the years, Connect-
World’s authors told of the rise
of mobile, of fibre, of wireless
and of broadband; they told of
the dot.com meltdown, of
digital inclusion and conver-
gence, of standards and break-
throughs, the rise of IP and
the fall of switching and of the
regulatory turnaround.
In every issue of Connect-World
heads of state, ministers and
regulators, heads of
international institutions and
leaders of industry speak of
what the ICT revolution, as it
happens, means to the people
in their regions of the world.
www.connect-world.com
 MobileEnterprise
payment
Mobilesystems
access
mobility

Mobilising the workforce

by Paul Blinkhorn, Australia Country Manager, Vice President of Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility
business, Australia and New Zealand and Asia-Pacific Channels

There is a significant difference between mere mobile communications and a truly mobile
business environment. By fully integrating all of an organisation’s communications and
systems, employees, wherever located, can easily access whatever corporate applications
and data they need to do their job. Further, fixed mobile convergence makes it possible
to reach an employee, using a single number, no matter where they are. Enterprise grade
mobile devices can be managed, secured and updated remotely for the entire organisation in
a matter of minutes.

Paul Blinkhorn is Motorola’s Australia Country Manager and Vice President of its Enterprise Mobility business in Australia, New
Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region. Mr Blinkhorn has 30 years’ experience in the ICT sector. Mr Blinkhorn joined Motorola from
Palm where he was the Vice President and Managing Director for Asia Pacific. Prior to Palm, Mr Blinkhorn served at Compaq/HP in
various leadership roles, including Vice President, Asia Pacific, responsible for the Industry Standard Server Division, Vice President
and Managing Director for Compaq Asean, Managing Director for Compaq New Zealand, and Sales Director for Compaq Australia.
Just prior to Compaq’s merger with HP, Mr Blinkhorn was Vice President of the Access Business Group. Prior to Compaq, Paul held
senior management positions at Olivetti Australia.

The British historian Arnold Toynbee
summarized history as ‘challenge and
response’. It is indeed true that nations and
organisations alike that wish to be at the
forefront must respond to the challenges by
walking the innovation edge. Advancements
in enterprise mobility technologies present a
compelling opportunity for enterprises across
the Asia-Pacific region and the chance to
innovate their enterprise structures and the
way they conduct their business.
The Asia Pacific region includes mature
markets like those of Japan, Korea, Australia,
New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan, which
now present some of the best use cases in the
world, and emerging giants like China and
India, who combined together present the
single largest market for telecom and mobility
technologies. Together they constitute a billion
strong wireless subscriber base. China had
649.72 million subscribers at the beginning
of the year. India had 376.12 million wireless
subscribers and 413.85 million total telecom
subscribers. These numbers and human
enterprise are creating new paradigms in
each market; China has emerged as the global
manufacturing hub and India is fast becoming
the services industry hub of the world.
Asia-Pacific countries have the choice to leap
frog the technology evolution path and adopt
today’s most advanced telecom ecosystem.
As enterprise mobility technologies mature,
more and more Asia Pacific businesses,
including small, medium or large enterprise
will be able to leverage ‘true’ mobility and
access the best most advanced applications.
According to IDC, businesses are demanding
more value from vendors and have a greater
focus on total cost of ownership. The global
economic meltdown is forcing businesses to
re-think their IT policies and IT investment
plans, focusing on cost-efficient, long-term
options. There are a number of examples of
class leading use of mobility technologies by
restaurants, the hospitality, retail and logistics
and healthcare sectors, where there is growing
uptake of wireless local area network (WLAN)
and mobility technologies. Outstanding
examples include Sir Run Run Shaw hospital
in Beijing, China and Bumrungrand hospital
in Thailand.
It is remarkable how quickly the world has
progressed since the mobile phone became
a mainstream reality more than twenty years
ago. Those once clunky devices coincided
with the arrival of email and the Internet as
a set of technologies which have transformed
the way we communicate, share information
and conduct business.
Communication has always been essential to
human activity; today we take for granted all
that mobile phones can do. We access email,
take photographs, send text messages, use
the Internet and listen to music on our mobile
phones. We wonder how we ever managed
without this transformation in mobile
communications - and mobile evolution is
still under way.
Ubiquitous wireless technology has
taken connectivity to new levels and
digital standards have opened a world of
opportunities for the enterprise. Significant
wireless bandwidth and converged networks
have opened new possibilities in workforce
mobility delivered via powerful handheld
devices.
However, there is a significant difference
between true mobility and portability, which
is more common.
Despite the possibilities afforded by
technological evolution, mobility is still

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 13

 Wo r l d F o r u m C h a i r p e r s o n Official Host Sponsor

Vivek Badrinath
Executive Vice President,
Networks, Carriers,
and Platforms
Orange

Carl-Henric Svanberg
President
and Chief Executive Officer
Ericsson

3
BBWF18

14 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009


dominated by consumer-grade devices
offering traditional voice, or voice
and data services. Few note the highly
sophisticated mobile devices that couple
basic communications with access to critical
business systems and data. Industries such as
supply chain and retail have harnessed this
technology for years, giving true mobility
to their workforces and directly improving
their bottom line. For example, transport and
logistics workers use enterprise-grade mobile
devices to scan barcodes on freight and
instantly update back-end inventory systems
giving the end customer real-time track-and-
trace visibility.
The traditional mobile phone has done all it
can for the enterprise. Now, with convergence,
management can get more from its mobile
investments. Enterprise functionality is now
found in the form factor of consumer-grade
devices and true mobility is ready for the
mainstream.
True mobility
To get the most out of mobility, it has to
provide a real-time connection between
enterprise voice and business systems and
the workforce. Communications alone is only
one part of the enterprise mobility equation.
Giving staff the power to interact with
business-specific applications and databases
away from their desks is a key driver of
productivity and operational efficiency.
A truly mobile workforce can access all
enterprise tools - phone, email, real-time back-
end applications - on a single device built
for everyday business anywhere, anytime.
Instead of having voice and computing on
different devices, workers inside and outside
the company are fully connected, on a single
device, to all the company’s ICT applications.
r This shifts the focus from mobile business
communication to true mobility.
When a company adopts mobility, their needs
are quite different from those for consumer
voice and data communications. Enterprise
applications call for highly secure devices that
can be remotely managed. Next generation
mobile solutions are designed to meet
rigorous enterprise demands in a manner that
consumer-grade devices cannot.
The concept of enterprise-grade true mobility
often brings to mind clunky brick-like devices
that are difficult to manage. However, today’s
mobile enterprise devices have consumer-
style ergonomics to bring true mobility to
new industries such as health and mobile field
force automation.
What is new with true mobility?
True mobility exploits converged next
generation networks and creates significant
business opportunities for telco operators.
There is an untapped market for operators and
application service providers who specialise
in developing tailored mobile solutions for
business.
Real-time connections to business systems
improve workforce productivity and overall
efficiency wherever operations take place
or business is transacted. It empowers the
individual worker, and gives access to
critical information so they can make better
decisions.
Armed with a comprehensive set of
productivity tools, workers can strip time
and duplication from daily processes. Data
can be captured instantly and paper forms
and associated manual errors are eliminated.
Business systems are kept up to date with
more accurate, real-time data.
Managers find that sophisticated mobile
solutions increase visibility into the business.
Management can incorporate real-time facts
into decisions, improving throughput and
production management. Inventory levels
can be reduced and turnover increased, by
responding to peaks and troughs in demand
more efficiently. In turn, staff can be
scheduled more economically to help control
labour costs.
The ability to scan product barcodes out in
the field increases quality in the information
chain, especially for the track-and-trace
applications that are critical in industries
where government regulations require end-to-
end product traceability. For example, in the
pharmaceutical industry, the ability to scan
samples in a doctor’s office reaches beyond
streamlining data collection to allow rapid
location and recall of counterfeit products.
At first glance, consumer style devices
(mobile phones, smartphones and PDAs)
appear more cost effective than an enterprise-
class device. There will always be workers
who need nothing more than voice and
occasional email communication; however,
for road warriors and other mobile employees
who need constant access to information
located in critical back-end systems, it pays to
consider the mobility solution’s total cost of
ownership.
There is constant pressure to make business
more efficient, use less dollars and resources.
Merging phone, PDA and laptop into a single
device translates into less management time
and cost.
Typical consumer devices are not rugged
enough for the enterprise; they are designed as
commodities with a 12 to 24 month lifecycle.
An enterprise-grade integrated voice and data
device can last up to seven years, more than
three times longer than a consumer device and
provides service cover that extends beyond
its expected lifespan. This is critical to CIOs
MobileEnterprise
payment
Mobilesystems
access
mobility
looking to secure and maintain a standard
operating environment (SOE).
Labour costs for configuration and
troubleshooting on consumer devices
can reach up to US$100 per device.
By comparison, enterprise devices are
configurable, automatically, over the air.
Remote management solutions provide IT
with centralised end-to-end control of devices,
and the ability to stage and update thousands
of devices in minutes rather than months.
Central management facilitates the handling
of security issues raised by business mobility.
With immense amounts of data being
transferred wirelessly, or stored in phones and
laptops, virus protection and management are
a major concern.
Traditional mobile devices are not built
with the security of sensitive data in mind.
A lost PDA containing confidential emails
is a major security breach. Centralised
device management is a deciding factor in
many organisations’ decision to take on true
mobility. Workforces cannot do business
anywhere, anytime unless their data is safe.
This is only possible when IT can monitor
devices 24/7, quickly update patches to
eliminate weaknesses, detect, lock and wipe
devices that may be lost or stolen, or enable
a mobile virtual private network (VPN) to
ensure the security of highly sensitive data.
Overall, going beyond the limited
functionality of consumer devices introduces
a host of benefits that influences spending,
efficiency and productivity.
Unshackle staff
There is so much more to the anatomy of
mobility than voice, email and calendars. Its
evolution during the previous twenty years is
only the tip of the iceberg; new paradigms in
cloud computing, GPS enabled location-based
services, virtual healthcare, customer service
and business transparency have only begun to
be explored.
The integration of robust voice and data
capabilities into a single, enterprise-grade
device and the virtual services made possible
by fixed mobile convergence are pushing
enterprise frontiers. E-health, field automation
and e-education delivered via highly powerful
mobile devices are possibilities that go
beyond traditional mobility and are fast
becoming a reality.
In the face of economic challenges, the
adoption of true mobility will grow rapidly as
organisations seek ways to make workforces
more efficient and cost less. When workers
can access business applications in the
field, the benefits will extend throughout the
business and to the bottom line. n
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 15
 Enterprise mobility

Mobile business communications

by Tan Choon Seng, Vice-President, Asia-Pacific, Applications & Software Sales, Avaya

Mobile corporate communications boost employee productivity outside the confines of the
office. By connecting staff, customers and management, they help companies service their
customers better. Corporate mobility solutions offer multi-modal access to the tools and
applications businesses rely on to be productive - regardless of where their employees are
located or what device they have at hand. Corporate mobility solutions include five essential
components: calling and conferencing management; one-number accessibility; messaging
management; contact and information management; and personal efficiency management.

Tan Choon Seng is the Vice President for Applications and Software Sales for Avaya in Asia-Pacific. Prior to this, Mr Seng was the
Regional Director for Avaya ASEAN where he was responsible for their Unified Communications and Contact Center applications
sales.

Mr Seng spent the last 20 years of his career in the IT and CRM/Call Center industry working with a broad spectrum of clients.

In today’s economic climate, organisations
are challenged to produce more with
fewer resources. Productivity needs to be
managed so customers receive a level and
quality of service that not only meets, but
exceeds expectations. Now, more than ever,
it is crucial that not only field resources
be productive and utilised at all times, but
that customers have the ability to contact
businesses when and how they want to.
When putting in place technologies and
policies to streamline processes and reduce
costs, companies need to ensure they take
the necessary steps to maintain the delicate
balance between maximising efficiency and
delivering top quality service.
One possible solution to this challenge is
mobility. Mobility solutions connect staff,
customers and management in the most
effective ways. Mobile technologies can also
help businesses of all sizes realise competitive
advantage by enabling employees to be
productive outside the confines of the office,
and increasing the efficiency of business
communications, which in turn allows
companies to deliver better levels of service
to their customers.
What is mobility?
Mobility can mean different things to different
people. For some, mobility is defined as
phone or email access while on the road.
For others, mobility is the breakdown of the
physical constraints of the workplace so that
business, in all its complexity, can happen
anywhere, anytime. For the sake of this piece,
I will focus on the application of mobility as
an enhancer of business communications,
whether in - or outside - the confines of the
traditional office.
The mobility challenge
Mobility can be defined as providing
universal, multi-modal access to the tools
and applications businesses rely on to be
productive - regardless of where they are
located or what device they have access to at
the time. Enterprises today face the challenge
of balancing efficient integration of office
communications with a variety of devices
without jeopardizing manageability, security,
or control. Flexibility, speed and better
customer contact translate into better service
and more importantly better relationships
with customers, a vital step in protecting the
customer base.

16 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009

PROMOTIONAL FEATURE
 Enterprise mobility
From a technical perspective, effective
mobility is comprised of five essential
building blocks: calling and conferencing
management; one-number accessibility;
messaging management; contact and
information management and personal
efficiency management. Each of these features
delivers a critical benefit to the business and
the customer.
The first element - calling and conferencing
management - is the ability to launch or
initiate conferences from any phone in any
location. Business today often requires
a variety of participants calling from
different locations, so having the ability to
conduct conference calls from anywhere
gives businesses the opportunity to close
deals while in transit. In addition, effective
conferencing can save money by replacing
the need to travel.
Calling and conference management is one
layer, but having one-number accessibility
is crucial. One-number accessibility allows
the redirection of any incoming call to a
mobile phone, laptop, or PDA, making it
possible to reach on-the-move employees
by using only their direct office number. By
eliminating the need for multiple access
numbers, communication is streamlined and
time spent doing business rather than trying
to locate someone. In fact, in the Asia Pacific
Mobility and UC Survey 2008, conducted by
IDC, the Asia Pacific managers considered
being ‘always reachable’ as the most
important benefit of mobile technologies.
The great majority of respondents saw
‘always reachable’ as the most important
benefit, while managers perceived satisfying
customers as the most important benefit of
mobile technologies in 2005. The survey
also revealed that managers perceived
mobile technologies as not just relevant for
managers that deal with customers, but also
for employees at large. They saw the value of
being responsive towards both customers and
co-workers.
While accessibility is an important feature,
effective management is the spark that really
makes mobility useful. Management involves
three components: messaging; content and
information; and personal efficiency.
In terms of accessibility, messaging
management brings about universal access
to any and all messages, so that voice, email
or fax messages can be viewed from a PC,
phone, or other wireless device and managed
from any location. Message management
18 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009
provides a common platform, so information
is quickly and efficiently delivered to its
intended users, regardless of what form it is
initially received in.
Contact and information management also
plays a key role by enabling users to connect
to company directories and databases from
any location, improving collaboration and
problem solving in real-time, without the need
to be in the office. Being easily reachable is
useful, but enabling users to access entire
corporate networks while on-the-go takes
business productivity to another level.
Finally, personal efficiency management
plays a part by allowing users to manage
appointments and tasks through rules-
based controls that distinguish between
urgent requests and routine interactions,
thus maximising efficiency. This helps users
make the most of their time by focusing
on important activities first. In the same
IDC survey in 2008, 81 per cent out of 626
respondents indicated ‘agree’ or ‘strongly
agree’ when asked if mobility improves
productivity, compared to only 61 per cent in
2005. The biggest increase in positive attitude
towards mobility as a means of improving
productivity was registered in Hong Kong (80
per cent), Australia (80 per cent) and India
(70 per cent).
Management is an important component
of making mobile working useful, so it
is no surprise that customers who have
deployed enterprise mobility cite this as the
strongest benefit. Effective manageability
ends the dependence on consumer-oriented
wireless network features, so work can truly
happen anywhere, anytime. In addition, it
lets companies choose the path that is most
appropriate for them to deploy enterprise
mobility, minimizing technical disruption and
preserving existing investments in wiring and
phones.
Facing the mobility challenge
The many mobile technologies available
today offer great value, but can fall short of
expectations if not managed in a strategic
manner. Enterprise-class mobility solutions
need to be simple to use and administer,
as well as have consistent user capabilities
and experience across all modes of work
and devices. In addition, devices must be
integrated with other devices, networks and
systems, as well as into enterprise processes
and business operations.
Business does not happen in isolation,
so users must not only be accessible, but
connected to each other as well. More
importantly, solutions need to be consistently
reliable - halfway attempts erode benefits
and compromise the usefulness of mobility.
Mobility is at its most effective if it is
invisible and ease of management and holistic
accessibility are the keys to making this
happen.
Mobility sets companies apart in the business
world. Making staff truly mobile is an
excellent way for an organisation to deliver
efficient office communications by offering
increased flexibility. Through the careful
combination of accessibility and management
features, mobility can break down walls and
extend business into the world outside the
traditional office. n
C
M
Y
CM
Connect-World is
MY
celebrating its 12th CY
anniversary CMY
Through the years, Connect-
K
World’s authors told of the rise
of mobile, of fibre, of wireless
and of broadband; they told of
the dot.com meltdown, of
digital inclusion and conver-
gence, of standards and break-
throughs, the rise of IP and
the fall of switching and of the
regulatory turnaround.
In every issue of Connect-World
heads of state, ministers and
regulators, heads of
international institutions and
leaders of industry speak of
what the ICT revolution, as it
happens, means to the people
in their regions of the world.
www.connect-world.com
 Connect-World APll.path.pdf 2009/2/28 9:45:35 AM

CM

MY

CY

CMY

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 19

 WiMAX

WiMAX: boon for businesses everywhere

by Michael Lai, CEO Packet One Networks Sdn Bhd.

Technology, especially wireless broadband such as WiMAX, lets businesses anywhere compete
on an equal footing with well-established global companies. With broadband, workers can
work from any convenient location, making productive employment possible for home-bound
workers who would otherwise be excluded from the market. Online businesses no longer need
to shoulder the cost of expensive office space for their workers or fully staffed showroom
space and with cloud computing, IT services can be obtained online without expensive capital
investment or fixed expense.

Michael Lai is currently playing a dual role as CEO of Packet One Networks (M) Sdn Bhd (P1), a provider of WiMAX enabled broadband
services, and as CEO of Green Packet International, a global next-generation mobile broadband network solutions provider. Mr Lai has
over 20 years of experience in the information and communications technologies sector.

Michael Lai is an Electrical Engineer by training with a Masters in Business Administration.

In my life, I have seen plenty of change. The
infusion of technology into our daily lives
has been remarkable, to say the least. We
have moved from wired telephones to cell
phones in less than a decade. Today, working
professionals are more comfortable with
keyboards than pens, and the Blackberry
has replaced the organizer as the on-the-go
productivity assistant of choice!
Few innovations have as profoundly affected
the way we live and do business as the
Internet. Noted venture capitalist and ‘techno-
preneur’ Bill Schrader once said, “Almost
overnight, the Internet’s gone from a technical
wonder to a business must.”
That remark is even more profound today.
Throughout the world, the availability of
broadband Internet access has had a positive
impact on the economy. By using the Internet,
businesses have expanded their markets region vary. In Malaysia, the household
and become increasingly globalised, more broadband Internet penetration is currently
productive and profitable. This trend has only around 20 per cent, but in developed
been so consistent that all countries share countries such as South Korea and Singapore,
the common desire to promote the Internet household broadband penetration rates
economy as a means of achieving economic are more than 97 per cent and 89 per cent
growth and raising national prosperity. respectively (http://www.websiteoptimization.
com/bw/0809/). Without ubiquitous broadband
In the Asia Pacific region, the Internet has Internet access, the inequalities between
opened new market and spread the growth people who are connected and those who are
of information and knowledge among not are quite apparent. It goes without saying
our population. Still, as things stand, the that we need to close this digital divide, and
broadband penetration rates throughout the it is to this end that the various governments
“WiMAX broadband will provide businesses with
opportunities for cost reduction across their entire
operations. Expanded markets and increased competition
through online procurement services will reduce the cost of
raw materials.”

20 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009


“For a long time, broadband Internet access, in the form of often costly leased lines, was a
privilege available only to businesses and companies in selected urban locations. Thousands
of rural businesses made do with dial-up Internet access - which only clocks in at 56Kbps or
less!”
in the region have actively pursued policies
to ramp up broadband Internet penetration
in their respective countries. In Malaysia,
for instance, one of the latest initiatives is to
deploy WiMAX with the aim of achieving
50 per cent household broadband Internet
penetration by 2010 - a two and a half-
fold growth in the next two years (based
on February 2009 figures, which measures
current household penetration at slightly
above 20 per cent).
Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave
Access (WiMAX) has a range of up to 50km
and, in Malaysia, operates on the 2.3 GHz
spectrum and 802.16e standard, known as
Mobile WiMAX. As a wireless technology,
WiMAX can deliver broadband Internet
access without the need for the laying of
costly cable infrastructure, and is therefore
particularly suitable for use in Malaysia,
where a significant part of our population still
lives in rural areas.
WiMAX-enabled business environment
For a long time, broadband Internet access,
in the form of often costly leased lines, was
a privilege available only to businesses
and companies in selected urban locations.
Thousands of rural businesses made do with
dial-up Internet access - which only clocks
in at 56Kbps or less! Without broadband
Internet access rural businesses cannot easily
send or receive large files via email, or use
VoIP to reduce their phone bills. WiMAX
will change all this. Businesses with true
broadband access will be able to easily market
themselves wherever, whenever they wish.
Simply put, WiMAX will provide a level
playing field for individuals, SOHOs (small
offices / home offices) and SMBs (small and
medium businesses).
The benefits of a WiMAX-enabled business
environment extend beyond the confines of
the office. WiMAX will liberate workers
from the office and allow them to choose
where they work - at home or on-the-go.
Telecommuting will open new opportunities
for many people who otherwise might not
work and as professionals; these could be
parents who want to stay at home with their
children or the handicapped, weak or ill who
cannot easily travel. By working from home,
these people can become active members
of the workforce and significantly improve
the quality of their lives. From a manpower
perspective alone, this will have a dramatic
effect upon the region’s productivity; from a
human perspective the effect will be priceless.
Talking about the human perspective, the
ability of WiMAX to touch and enrich lives
and empower people is just one of the many
wonderful benefits of the technology. The
fact that WiMAX has the ability to unlock
the potential of the less able, previously
sidelined, segments of society can really drive
our nations forward, as we harness previously
neglected, unusable, human capital.
Even small businesses will find that
WiMAX will open doors for them. Through
eCommerce, these businesses will be able to
sell their goods in the global marketplace. For
example, a plastic bottle manufacturer will
effectively have a world-wide audience at its
reach. The global nature of the Internet means
that as long as they harness the right Web
platforms, SMBs can compete on a level-
playing field with their bigger competitors.
WiMAX-enabled business transformation
WiMAX broadband will provide businesses
with opportunities for cost reduction across
their entire operations. Expanded markets
and increased competition through online
procurement services will reduce the cost
of raw materials. For many businesses,
broadband Internet access will dramatically
reduce their time-to-market by cutting down
the time it takes to send, receive and process
routine business communications such as
purchase orders, invoices and shipping
manifests. Beyond routine communications,
WiMAX-enabled business will be able
to develop enhanced levels of close
collaboration through the sharing of complex
information between their personnel and their
partners. WiMAX will facilitate the exchange
of documents in real-time so changes can
be discussed and rapidly approved and
transactions completed much more quickly.
The recent emergence of cloud computing
also offers businesses new opportunities
Mobile payment
Mobilesystems
access
WiMAX
to leverage previously unaffordable ICT
technologies and achieve greater efficiencies
in their operations. Through cloud computing,
businesses both large and small can access the
IT resources they need as a service, and pay
for it as they use it, and eliminate expensive
capital investments.
The Internet economy
The Internet has vastly increased the range
of products and services that are readily
available to us - from books and electronic
goods to banking and VoIP services - the
choice, and the power that comes with that
choice, are ours. Due to easier and more
effective price comparison and an increased
range of goods for the buyer to choose from,
competition on the Internet is very keen.
Businesses that compete in online markets for
goods and services have to be very efficient.
While the Internet has driven prices down to
the benefit of consumers, it has also benefited
businesses. A store does not have to be in a
prominent, expensive, shopping complex to
reach its customers. By having a presence
online, the store is effectively wherever their
customer is. This has reduced the cost of
keeping inventory, which in turn has allowed
businesses to sell items they could not carry
in a brick-and-mortar store. Just think how
much space Amazon.com would need if it
were a real world bookshop. Staffing costs
are also low, as you no longer need to hire
sales personnel to keep the physical store
going. And, better yet, the Web store never
closes - you can generate sales leads and sell
to customers round the clock.
As WiMAX is rolled-out across the region,
giving more citizens broad access to the
Internet, there is every reason for us to expect
that the Internet will reach further into our
daily lives. Asians have had Internet access
for over a decade now, but we have yet to
unlock its full potential. WiMAX is the
golden key that will open that gate. n
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 21
22 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009
 Mobile payment
Mobilesystems
access
Converged TV

The next television revolution

by Dario Choi, Executive VP and General Manager, Tandberg Television Asia-Pacific;
Ericsson Group

Consumers want an integrated multimedia experience combining fixed and wireless

networks to deliver both entertainment with communications. Accordingly, television will
converge with fixed-line and mobile telecoms, and entertainment and communications will
blend into unified services. Open standards for IMS/IP-based convergence will provide
Internet-sourced video alongside traditional television and VOD as part of an increasingly
personalized TV experience. Consumers will be able to access their converged multimedia
services on television, through their PC or on handheld devices including mobile phones.

Dario Choi is the Executive VP and General Manager of Tandberg Television, Asia Pacific, which is part of the Ericsson Group; he is
part of Tandberg Television’s global executive management team. Previously, Mr Choi served as the Senior Sales Director, responsible for
overseeing the development of Tandberg Television’s sales and business opportunities in SE & NE Asia. He joined Tandberg Television
from SkyStream Networks where he was Managing Director of Asia-Pacific. Dario Choi was elected for a two-year term on the CASBAA
- The Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia - Council of Governors.

Dario Choi earned an Electrical Engineering degree from University of Alberta, Canada and is a member of the International Engineering
Consortium and the ISP-Satellites Forum.

Over the last decade, Pay TV platform
operators have adapted their technologies
and business models to incorporate digital
TV, interactivity, video on demand (VOD),
personal video recorders (PVR), and more
recently, HDTV (high definition television).
Not surprisingly, most of these innovations
have been focused on the home television
set - which is where the TV industry has
traditionally made its living.
The changes during the next ten years will
be equally exciting - and possibly even
more significant. That is because television
will start to converge with fixed-line and
mobile telecoms, and entertainment and
communications will blend into unified
service propositions. Viewers will be offered
Internet-sourced video alongside traditional
television and VOD as part of an increasingly
personalized TV experience. Consumers will
be able to access their converged multimedia
services on television, through their PC or on
handheld devices including mobile phones.
There is a whole generation of consumers -
the so-called digital natives - who are waiting
for these changes. Brought up in the post-
digital, post-wireless, post-Internet world,
they think and behave differently than their
parents. A global study covering 35,000
consumers identified four key requirements
for next-generation TV. These are ‘TV
that is personal’, ‘TV that connects me to
everything’, ‘TV that is high quality’ and ‘TV
that is worth the money’.
‘TV that is personal’ means people want to
control what they watch, when they watch
it, and which devices they watch it on. They
want the ability to time-shift their viewing
and want to be able to transfer content from
one device to another - for example, from
the home television to their mobile phone
when they leave the house. They only want
advertising messages that are relevant to
them, and they want user-generated as well as
professionally produced content because, for
them, entertainment is entertainment.
During this extensive consumer study, it
became obvious that younger consumers want
to communicate, share content, view content
and even produce content - all at the same
time on the same device. ‘TV that connects
me to everything’ is the vision of customers
that live their lives online and on three
screens.
Taken together, these demands add up to what
we call the individual television experience.
Digital natives will be early adopters
but history tells us that new multimedia
behaviours and expectations are learnt
within families and workplaces, and cross
generations. For this reason, all television

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 23

 Converged TV
providers - including cable and satellite
operators - will have to evolve their services.
We do believe, however, that telecoms
companies will lead the way, partly because
they are IP-centric, partly because of their
wireless heritage, but mainly because they
have the most to gain from change. They
are late entrants in the Pay TV market, but
by pioneering converged TV experiences,
they can take a leadership position and
revolutionize triple-play services.
A strong IPTV service with HDTV, interactive
TV, PVR and VOD is the starting point on
the journey to the ‘individual television
experience’. Next, telcos must adapt their
networks and delivery technologies. Open
standards, and especially IMS (IP Multimedia
Subsystem) and OIF (Open IPTV Forum)
conformance, will be key enablers.
IMS is providing an open
standards approach to converging
services between multiple
devices and provides a common
platform for next-generation
TV and multimedia services.
IMS can be exploited to deliver
communication enablers such as
presence, messaging, multimedia
telephony and chat, among other
things.
There are several examples of
IMS-enabled IPTV applications
that meet the expectations of an
individual television experience.
IPTV services can recognize the
presence of consumers and their
buddies across multiple devices and networks.
Someone can access music files stored on
their home PC from their mobile phone,
using a combination of IMS and DLNA
(Digital Living Network Alliance) standards
to instigate an upload/download or streaming
session for any multimedia content. Thus
users can access television, pictures, personal
video, and such like, any time and virtually
anywhere.
When IPTV middleware is pre-integrated
with IMS it opens the way to a number
of service innovations. One example is
broadcast reminder, where a consumer sets
a programme reminder and, if the television
is off when the reminder is due, a message
is sent to their mobile phone. Another is
extended parental control, where children can
request permission from a guardian to watch
a VOD movie that is outside their age rating
thanks to SMS messaging between a set-top
box and mobile phone. IPTV operators are
trialling IMS-centric middleware today with a
24 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009
view to developing services like this.
We view open architectures and standards-
based interoperability as a prerequisite to
these next-generation services. The Open
IPTV Forum’s forthcoming standard will
encourage the openness; flexibility and
scalability that operators need to deliver more
mobile and personalized TV experiences. The
OIF encourages innovation and partnership.
The Open IPTV Forum is a pan-industry
initiative working to produce end-to-
end specifications for IPTV. It is open to
participation by the communications and
entertainment industries and the consumer
electronics industry. Until now, there has not
yet been a mass uptake of IPTV services,
partly because the IPTV industry still has no
common IPTV solution standard; the OIF
efforts should finally turn IPTV into a mass
market service.
Creating the next generation TV experience
requires more than standards, however. It
makes new demands on industry vendors
because triple-play providers developing
converged services need partners with a
combination of skills taken from the world of
telecoms and television. They need suppliers
who understand both fixed-line and wireless,
and they may well require companies with
the ability to build hybrid network solutions
that combine IP with satellite, cable or digital
terrestrial.
The next generation of television will be
interwoven with fixed and mobile telecoms
services so it makes sense that vendors must
have experience beyond just television,
mobile or fixed-line telecoms. To help network
operators exploit the convergence opportunity,
vendors need a deep-rooted knowledge of
how to build revenue-generating services
across multiple networks, with systems
integration excellence in each segment and
- crucially - an umbrella understanding of
how they fit together to create the consumer
experience of the future. This sort of vendor
is what we refer to as a ‘Prime Integrator’.
The march towards the individual television
experience has already begun. Consumers are
watching more on-demand and time-shifted
content and, as well, more television on
the move. They like to send text and instant
messages to friends while watching video on
TV or online. Network operators have to find
ways to integrate these services better.
Consumers have limited budgets and will
only commit so much of their money to
subscriptions, so operators know that
advertising must be part of the revenue-
generating model for next-generation
services. Telcos need to prepare the ground
for advertising models that can exploit a
‘unicast’ environment (content not
broadcast to all, but sent directly
to each user upon request), with
support for VOD advertisement
placements, telescoping adverts
and targeted advertising, as well
as local and linear advertising.
Cross-platform advertising will
play an increasingly important
role in converged service models.
Advertising can contribute
towards the cost of the evolution
of networks that support the
individual television experience.
We believe it will be important
to support unified advertising
campaigns through campaign
management, asset management
and delivery solutions. As operators deliver
multi-screen television experiences they
will also need more sophisticated content
management systems (CMS). The CMS will
need to handle video and advertising assets,
and content rights, across multiple platforms
to multiple types of screen.
The individual television experience will
increase telco customer loyalty, attract new
subscribers and grow revenues. By delivering
innovative services, IPTV providers can
avoid competing on price and sustain growth
through recession, recovery or boom.
Although this change will be driven by
digital natives, all consumers will adapt their
behaviours. Although telecoms operators will
pioneer the personalisation and mobilisation
of TV, cable and satellite will soon follow
their lead. Convergence will fundamentally
change how everyone consumes media and
how everyone delivers it. n
 MobileMobile
payment
Mobilesystems
access
messaging

The power of messaging

by Boudewijn Pesch, Managing Director, Acision Asia Pacific

Text messaging volumes increase yearly, but competitive price erosion in messaging has
reduced margins. Nevertheless, a number of new services might reverse this trend. Mobile
operators need to personalise their messaging services by offering subscribers a variety of
new features. Operators can build revenues by extending messaging to fixed terminals via
the PC or via cable TV and by offering Internet-based instant messaging to heavy users
such as teens. Messaging-based business applications, including mobile marketing, are also
important revenue generators.

Boudewijn Pesch is the Managing Director of Acision Asia Pacific. Mr Pesch joined CMG in 1998 as the Chief Representative, and
was later appointed Managing Director of CMG Asia-Pacific. When CMG merged with Logica, becoming LogicaCMG, Mr Pesch was
named Director for LogicaCMG’s Telecoms Products business and expanded its business presence in new markets such as Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Vietnam and Thailand. When this business was bought by Atlantic Bridge Venture, and established as Acision, Mr Pesch
assumed his present post. Prior to joining CMG, Mr Pesch was the General Manager of the Detron Group in Asia Pacific. Mr Pesch also
served in a consulting position with VB Group in The Netherlands.

Boudewijn Pesch earned a Masters degree in management studies and a Bachelors degree in engineering.

Innovation in messaging
Text messaging is one of the most successful
data applications for mobile operators; its
volumes increase year after year. However,
price erosion in messaging has put pressure on
margins and the mobile industry is frantically
searching for new services with opportunities
for revenue growth. I Ovum states that no
other service generates revenues that are even
close to those from text messaging. In 2009,
SMS will generate 80 per cent of worldwide
messaging revenues.
Besides exploring new ways to increase
existing text messaging revenues, operators
need to consider an evolutionary approach
using text messaging as a starting point.
Future revenue growth can be obtained
through differentiation and by creating new
business on existing text messaging channels.
Mobile messaging has not reached its limits;
the time is right to leverage the unique values
of mobile messaging beyond person-to-person
traffic. In fact, messaging revenues have the
potential to double by 2011, reaching a market
size of US$165 billion.
The future of text
The success of text messaging is often
attributed to its ease of use, reliability and
transparent pricing. Yet, some argue that rich
Internet-based messaging services will take
over its dominant position in a few years;
the trends bear this out - mobile broadband
coverage has increased dramatically and
market share of Internet enabled mobile
devices now surpasses the 25 per cent mark.
On the other hand, text messaging is not
showing any signs of slowing down. In May
2008, Ovum increased its volume predictions
on text messaging for 2011 by over 60 per
cent. The popularity of text messaging has
turned it into a key operator tool for subscriber
acquisition and retention, but this has resulted
in near flat fee pricing. The truth is that it
will not decrease in volumes or usage, but
operator margins are threatened. However, if
the right solutions are put in place, operators
can increase their text-messaging results.
Differentiation and margins
Over the past 15 years, most operators have
adopted a similar strategy of positioning text
messaging as a new service. In recent years,
however, messaging has reached mass-market
adoption and turned into a commodity. To
address this challenge, operators need to do
what every business does when faced with
commoditization. Operators must differentiate

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 25

 Mobile messaging
their mobile messaging portfolio by further
refining the service positioning to address
the different messaging needs of various user
segments.
At the same time, it is crucial to avoid
disruption of SMS’s key asset: simplicity.
Confronting subscribers with complex
features easily results in poor adoption
rates. By gradually differentiating mobile
messaging, operators will ensure text
messaging relevance across their entire
subscriber base and increase overall revenues.
To realize the required margin growth, it is
crucial to minimize the costs associated with
service differentiation.
Based on this vision, we have defined a text
messaging strategy aimed at doubling the
messaging revenues. This strategy consists
of five key elements that will drive subscriber
and channel revenue.
Personalize the messaging experience
- By offering personalised messaging
services, operators can charge for a number
of new features that are already proving to
be effective. Currently, a vast majority of
subscribers use several messaging services.
Through email and instant messaging,
users are increasingly familiar with features
such as automated replies, forwarding,
signatures, threaded messaging and presence
information, and these should be applied to
text. The demand for personalized messaging
is tremendous. Research indicates that 57 per
cent of Filipino respondents are extremely
or very likely to use such features. Initial
launches of personalised messaging services
have shown a text messaging revenue growth
potential of up to 15 per cent. An example
of such a personalised service launched by
SingTel and Maxis in 2008 is Auto-copy. This
service automatically forwards copies of text
messages received to another phone number
or email address.
Extend mobile messaging to fixed - Besides
the mobile phone, many subscribers use
a range of fixed devices such as PCs and
TV sets daily. When offering access to text
messaging on these devices, the barrier to
use text messaging would be even lower.
Extending text messaging to fixed devices
gives operators a way to earn service
revenues in the fixed domain. The additional
user interface can also earn additional billable
text messaging for the operator. The enhanced
user interface may improve advertising
effectiveness and the user’s abilities to
personalize the messaging experience. Finally,
it allows delivery of text messages via third-
party bearers such as a cable or DSL Internet
26 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009
connection. Delivering messages using a
fixed network substantially reduces costs by
reducing the traffic on the mobile operator’s
radio network.
Widgets as extension to SMS - PC and
Web-based widgets enable users and Web
developers to control how to position certain
third-party applications. This drastically
limits the barrier to use these applications. It
is no surprise that in June 2008 alone, over
600 million people communicated through
widgets. If operators were to allow text
messaging through widgets, it would help
them increase the value of text messaging and
realise the opportunities mentioned above.
Instant messaging as extension of SMS -
Most people associate think of messaging
with dominant brands such as Windows Live
Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger in mind.
In recent years however, the IM landscape is
getting ever more diverse. A long list of social
networks, mail providers, niche communities
and mobile operators has launched their own
IM services. Operator IM may not be a new
killer application, but it is a logical extension
of mobile messaging for mobile and fixed
Internet users.
Use messaging to mobilize the Web - Usage
of the Internet among teenagers has grown to
a staggering 12.5 online hours per week. Yet
the average teenager is available at least 112
hours per week through his mobile phone.
In other words, teens are almost ten times
more likely to be available through their
mobile phone. Clearly, the mobile channel
can become a crucial link, enabling people
to interact at any time. As a result, a value-
added services market has taken shape since
the 1990s. However, there are still many
Internet-based service providers that do not
mobilize their service offering through mobile
messaging.
Mobilize business applications - On
average, 5.5 per cent of patients do not show
up for their appointments at their doctor’s
office. A simple text-messaging reminder
would substantially reduce the number of no-
shows and the associated costs. Incentivated
Ltd, a mobile marketing agency, proposed a
simple SMS reminder service for UK-based
optician and helped to generate US$8 million
in savings.
Operators have addressed the mobile
enterprise opportunity mainly through
technological innovations such as the wireless
application protocol (WAP) and push email.
This has resulted in a plethora of device
specific applications with low reliability
and high integration costs. Consequently,
enterprise mobility has brought little or no
productivity improvement for the average
business.
The opticians example illustrates that the real
opportunities may be much closer than the
solutions implemented so far. Combining the
reach and reliability of text messaging with
the relevance of data in enterprise applications
promises a quantum leap in enterprise
productivity.
Set up a mobile marketing business -
Operators can already play a pivotal role of
mobile operators in the mobile advertising
value chain. They own the customer
relationship and access channels, the
advertising inventory, the location information
and the customer profile. This profile is much
more than the phone number. It involves
usage behaviour, demographics and content
preferences.
Furthermore, the operator controls the main
vehicle for the digital dialogue: mobile
messaging. According to IAB, 95 per cent of
text messages are opened compared to 25 per
cent of emails. This puts mobile operators in
a very strong position indeed when competing
for advertising budgets.
At the same time, operators are anxious to
protect existing service revenue streams,
which remain the most significant part of
their business. To date, mobile advertising is
making slow but steady progress towards the
forecasts of becoming a US$19 billion dollar
industry.
In summary, advertising revenues will never
be adequate to replace service revenues, but
are a welcome supplement for operators.
Mobile operators are uniquely positioned to
monetize the best advertising inventory in
the world. Combining customer location and
profile enables the delivery of unprecedented
levels of advertising relevance and reach. By
addressing the essential enablers mentioned
above, the competitive position of operators
in the advertising market could be second to
none.
The future of messaging continues to be bright
despite the current economic slowdown, and
mobile operators who recognize the potential
of messaging can effectively extend their
revenues by leveraging their existing assets
and exploiting the potential still left in today’s
mobile services, allowing them to remain
agile and profitable. n
FZkfY\i#(*k_kf(-k_#)''0›JXfGXlcf›9iXq`c›KiXejXd\i`ZX<ogf:\ek\i

Event Overview
14.3OO Attendees from 42 countries
International participation with outstanding
presence of “C-levels”
25.OOO square meter Exhibition
4.8OO Seminar Delegates
More than 3OO Speakers and Panelists
7 Conference Rooms with Simultaneous
Presentations and Translation

Futurecom, the most qualified Telecom and

IT Event in Latin America.
An undertaking that gathers the Market Strengths and offers the attending
Companies, Professionals and Executives a stimulating environment for the
development of Businesses, Know-How and Relationships in Brazil.
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Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 27
 Mobile banking

Mobile banking - sense, dollars, and cents

by Chris Carr, Vice President, Sales, Southeast Asia Pacific, Nokia

By automating their services, banks have reduced both costs and errors, and the manpower
needed to process transactions and handle cash. Many clients now handle most of their
banking needs at home or the office. Automated banking has made it possible to cut costs
whilst improving services. Mobile banking takes the convenience and savings to a new level,
and economically extends banking services to remote regions that low-income users’ banks
were never able to serve before, thereby promoting their economic development

Chris Carr is Nokia’s Vice President of Sales for Southeast Asia Pacific. In his previous role, Mr Carr was General Manager of Nokia
Singapore. Since joining the company Mr Carr has worked for Nokia in both Asia and Europe.

Chris Carr holds a Bachelor of Business Administration - Major in Finance from Philip Institute of Technology (now known as RMIT).

For many of us, it has been quite a while since
our last visit to a bank branch.
Millions are already banking online. The on-
going substitution of cashless systems over
notes and coins is driving this trend. From the
comfort of their home or office, people can
transfer funds, pay bills, renew fixed deposits,
update contact details, and do many more
transactions that now help them stay clear
of those long-winding queues inside bank
branches.
With mobile devices taking on more and
more functions previously possible only with
personal computers, banking conducted using
mobile devices, or mobile banking, for short,
is the next logical step to take.
This is not to say that banks can now shut
down most of their branches. We might have
seen this happening to a certain extent with
online banking and ATM machines becoming
the main customer touch points.
Rather, we are seeing another trend: banks
are keeping their physical branches, but have
reconfigured them with more private counters
and comfortable chairs, to allow for more
personalised services for their customers.
No longer are bank branches simply an
imposing wall of counters manned by a row
of sullen tellers dishing cash to equally sullen
customers.
We like to think that the most significant and
tangible benefits that mobile banking will
bring, is for the hitherto ‘unbanked’ people

28 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009


in emerging economies, where the rural,
remote, nature of the region makes for a less
compelling business case to open a local
branch.
There is also another reason that might have
been easily overlooked: for those with hardly
any experience banking, visiting a physical
bank branch can be an encounter filled with
apprehension.
Mobile banking, done in the privacy and
comfort of one’s own environment, will go a
long way in helping to overcome this barrier.
The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor
(CGAP), a Washington-based international
body that aims to help the poor become more
financially savvy, notes that in some countries
in Asia, Africa and Latin America, there are
already more people with mobile phones than
bank accounts. Based on this alone, we do not
see the need to make a strenuous argument for
mobile banking.
Mobile phones have the potential to transform
this situation by providing basic financial
services to people with low incomes. In
many developing countries, people already
use pre-paid airtime as a virtual currency.
For example, if bread costs one dollar, a
customer may pay the baker by transferring
pre-paid airtime worth one dollar when they
buy the bread. A credit system could also help
people access mobile phones by facilitating
small loans. The cost of buying a phone is a
significant expense for most people, though
it is likely to be small in comparison to the
running cost. If the barrier to access is cash
flow rather than cost, issuing small loans
through the phone credit system could help.
A good example of how solution providers can
meet the banking needs of emerging markets
is through the use of mobile technology such
as NFC. When Near Field Communications
(NFC) are fully integrated into mobile
phones, such devices will enable information
sharing, service initiation, payment and
ticketing capabilities with one simple tap of
the device. NFC devices can help to provide
social security and banking services in areas
where there are no computers or Internet
services. Pilot studies in Africa and Asia
have demonstrated the potential for mobile
devices to deliver basic financial services in
developing countries.
Many industry partners are also already thick
in the action. For example, Bangladesh Bank,
in consultation with the relevant industry
Mobile payment
Mobilesystems
Mobile access
banking
partners, is putting in place a legal framework
covering fund transfers using mobile devices.
For this South Asian country, such a system
is needed to safeguard the hard-earned money
remitted back by its large overseas population;
the system, appropriately regulated, will
increase the speed with which recipients can
access their much-awaited cash quickly, and
safely.
In a sense, Bangladesh is not the first to the
party, and the party will get livelier.
To put the immense opportunity in
perspective, there are more than six billion
people in the world today. Soon there will
be four billion mobile phones, but only
one billion bank accounts and one billion
credit cards. In many parts of the world
people still rely on cash and this results in
several limitations. With mobile technology,
electronic means of payment will be available
for the very first time to hundreds of millions
of individuals, many of whom will come from
rural communities in emerging economies.
Similarly, Fiserv, Inc, which provides IT
You might ask: Why should banks bother with services to financial institutions, released a
these potential users? We can assume that commissioned survey in September 2008,
they will not be depositing millions of dollars which shows that three-quarters of the
each, nor taking out similar amounts of loan respondents (sample size of 1,007, regular
to begin with. However, let’s not overlook American mobile users 18 years and above)
that banks are the hearts of an economy, they will consider using mobile banking services
help manage the blood circulation - in the if offered. A similar survey, done in March
form of funds - safe-keeping them for those 2006, put the figure only at 49 per cent.
who do not have immediate needs, while
lending to those who need to put the funds to Mobile banking has been around for nearly a
immediate use. decade, but it did not get off to a strong start.
Thus, banks grow with the communities that But, that is way behind us.
they reside in, and communities can grow in
function of the banks that support them. Some issues remain, like revenue and cost
sharing among the various parties involved,
Meanwhile, the growth of mobile banking but other equally important ones, like security
is gaining momentum, and will continue. and ease of use, are already nicely addressed.
Various forecasts by industry analysts point at
this. For example, Juniper Research expects We can only say that things are always
816 million mobile banking users by 2011, a improving. Vendors and industry players have
ten-fold difference from 2007. not been sitting on their hands doing nothing,
and there has been significant and continuous
improvement in the technology, the systems,
and the experience.
The financial industry is now undergoing
some significant changes. The industry - in
trying to overcome the current problems -
will take long, hard, looks at various spending
needs. Obviously, investments in channels
and systems that make business sense will
get the priority. This is now an opportunity to
expand their reach to customers, and mobile
platform is an obvious way to do so. n
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 29
 GIL 2009: Asia Pacific
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October 2009
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30 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009

 Mobile payment
Mobileservices
Mobile systems
access

Mobile services on the move in Asia Pacific

by Dr Abdul Razaque Memon, Director, Solution Marketing, Application Business Division,

Alcatel-Lucent Asia Pacific

Data makes a tremendous contribution to the bottom line of Asia Pacific’s mobile operators.
SMS generates the majority of data revenues in most of the world, but in Japan and Korea,
almost 75 per cent of mobile data revenue is not SMS driven. Multimedia content from online
virtual stores and search engines generate advertising revenue. Mobile streaming, mobile TV,
mCommerce, eCommerce, new mobile payment systems, lifestyle and social networking and
Web-based communications (IM, email, and so on.) are also becoming important revenue
sources.

Dr Abdul Razaque Memon is the Director of Solution Marketing throughout the Asia Pacific region for Alcatel-Lucent’s Application Business Division. Dr Abdul
Razaque Memon Abdul has over 15 years of industry experience; he has held a number of senior positions in sales and marketing focusing upon converged solutions
(VoIP, NGN, IMS and IPTV, Mobile TV, VAS, Content, Advertising) for fixed and mobile network operators. Dr Abdul Razaque Memon has long been actively involved
in strategic IPTV & Mobile TV projects and played a key role in growing the fixed network transformation business in Asia Pacific.

Dr Abdul Razaque Memon completed his Doctorate in Computer Engineering at the Xian Jiatong University in China.

A vast majority of people across Asia Pacific
still use mobile handsets only for voice
communication and text messaging. For
instance, in China and India, where mobile
penetration is lower than 45 and 20 per cent
respectively, voice and text messages are key
consumer priorities. Mobile penetration in
the countries of Asia Pacific differ greatly:
in developed countries mobile penetration
is between 70 to 110 per cent*, but in
developing countries mobile penetration is
less than 70 per cent*.
Mobile services in developed regions
In Japan and Korea, 70 to 75 per cent* of
mobile data revenue came from non-SMS
traffic. Text-based data browsing started in
Japan with i-mode - a key consumer attraction.
Content and location search applications
easily find shopping and commercial sites and
the majority of Japanese consumers prefer to
use mobile email instead of SMS-based text
messaging.
Smartphone Services
Globally, the Apple iPhone and Google’s
Android G1 have changed the way consumers
use their mobile devices and enhanced the
user experience. Instead of just voice and text,
they now easily access multimedia content.
This has increased mobile data browsing
traffic dramatically. There are now hundreds
of applications available to download and
install on iPhone through widgets. This has
also brought new revenue streams for content
providers that sell their content online through
virtual stores, for software developers selling
their software online and, via search engines,
generated advertising revenue.
Some operators (for example, CHT Taiwan,
Softbank Japan, SingTel Group, Vodafone
and Telstra in Australia) have already
launched 3G-iPhone-based devices and
services. Google-related Android partnerships
and launches have also been announced.
Blackberry, LG, Nokia, Palm and Samsung
have launched their touch-screen mobile
devices. New services will use a variety
of operating systems including Microsoft
Window Mobile, Symbian, Linux, Java-
based, and so on.

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 31

 Mobile services
The GSMA RCS (Rich Communication
Suite) consortium brought network and
software vendors, service providers and CPE
vendors together last year to ensure operators
can go-to-market with a minimum set of
rich communications features (presence;
enhanced and network address book; instant
messaging; chatting and content sharing) that
are interoperable among different operator
networks based on different network and
client vendors. The roadmap for new features
like fixed IMS connectivity and converged IP
messaging based on RCS looks promising for
all devices.
Mobile streaming and TV
Mobile streaming and mobile TV are changing
the way users watch TV. Japan has a number
of mobile TV free-to-air digital channels
and is a market leader in the service. Korea
launched its unicast (individual transmission
direct to each subscriber) and broadcast
mobile TV service with success. Australia’s
Telstra launched mobile TV service on its
unicast next generation 3G network-based
on a rich media client. Consumers are using
the mobile TV service on the move (train,
buses, and pause). Singapore’s mobile TV
service recently launched unicast service and
broadcast trials are in progress. Hong Kong
and Taiwan are preparing to auction mobile
TV licenses in mid-2009.
Content and advertising
Content selling and advertising business
models are the keys to operator success in
the Asia Pacific market. Most Asia Pacific
operators already sell content customised
to fit mobile screens through their Internet
portals. Market studies show that searches
for specific content on mobile devices are
still not accurate, so searching and browsing
can cost more than the online content.
Personalized and targeted mobile advertising
helps operators increase their APRU and
provide ‘stickiness’, with consumers viewing
advertising they like.
Mobile commerce and eCommerce
Mobile commerce and eCommerce are
innovative services; they are widely deployed
in Japan and Korea in different forms. The use
contact-less touch and pay cards (EDY, Suica,
iD, Pasmo, QUICPay, USIM-card, Korea
Smart Mobile T Money) and cards added to
3G-based mobile phones to create m-wallets
(mobile wallets). Card readers are deployed
in banks, retail and convenience stores.
Japanese vendors and SKT have also signed
partnerships to offer m-payment services for
overseas markets.
32 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009
Hong Kong and Singapore rolled out ‘touch
and pay’-based smartcards called Octopus and
EzLink - cards used to pay for transportation,
retail stores, food chains, and so on.
Taiwan focused on NFC-based (near field
communications) trials and deployments along
with VISA and MasterCard and partnered
with HTC, Nokia and BenQ to embed NFC
in smartphone handsets. Australian operators
are currently running similar trials with banks
and credit card companies.
Lifestyle and social networking
iPhone’s intuitive and streamlined user
interface is delivering Web-based social
networking to consumers on-the-move.
Subscribers have started to surf the Web more,
using mobile 3G networks and operators,
in turn, are offering more attractive data
packages.
A tight relationship between social networking
(Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Piczo, bebo) and
smartphones helped usage grow exponentially
throughout 2008. Many Japanese and Korean
consumers browse social networking sites
with smartphones - updating their status,
photos and video clip and commenting on
their friends’ Web pages. Social networks
are developing sophisticated revenue models
through product placement, sponsorship,
physical retail, virtual retail, data mining,
VAS charges and advertising.
Web-based communications
Consumers will adopt Web-based
communications and applications that
integrate the Web 2.0 IMS services via
widgets. Dynamic personal profiles with
context and mood, click-to-communicate,
instant messaging (IM) centres, SMS, email
and network address books with contacts
imported from mobile, Internet and presence
rich information on PC, desktop and mobile
smartphones.
Integrating IMS communication capabilities
into a service provider’s Web portal, makes
applications like address book management,
presence, IM and click-to-dial available on
Web page or a mobile.
Web 2.0 widget.
Mobile Web-search
Mobile Web searches let subscribers find their
own content quickly and efficiently. Mobile
content companies have started to work with
operators such as Mobile Content Networks.
Yahoo Japan announced a similar partnership
to provide high value search results.
Future services
Expect to see the personalization of services.
Social networking sites will offer address
books and communication. The deployment
of social-support services and the provision
of converged services will grow. Video
services, touch screen-based services, voice
recognition-based browsing and services, LTE
(4G) mobile broadband and advanced handset
that take better advantage of networks will be
common.
Mobile services in developing regions
Voice and messaging
Voice and messaging traffic volume and
revenue are cash cows for operators, even
in the economic downturn. The Philippines
lead the SMS market; each user there sends
an average of 750 messages* each month. As
mobile phones are equipped with cameras and
other multi-media software, IM and MMS
usage has risen sharply. In the China market,
person-to-person, application-to-person
related messaging like news alerts, ring
tones, promotional video clips and enterprise
messages also grew at the annual rate of ten
per cent.
Blackberry
Blackberry email has changed the way people
communicate in the enterprise and SME
domain. When outside their country, people
stay virtually connected with the company
and employees almost 24 hours a day; this has
increased productivity substantially. It is now
available from Southeast Asia to Indo-China
and from China to Mongolia. One recently
announced deployment is with Viettel in
Vietnam, where a single solution is provided
to cover the SME and large enterprise
markets with advanced encryption and secure
IT policy controls. The solution also links
individuals with popular email accounts such
as Yahoo Mail, Google Mail, and so on, from
a variety of single devices.
Mobile commerce and eCommerce
Mobile-commerce in Southeast Asia and India
have totally different formats; they charge low
transaction fees there and use low technology
handsets - like 2.5G phone SMS - to offer
basic banking for rural and unreachable
markets.
Different business models are used with
mobile payment-based solutions - depositing,
withdrawing and transferring money in stored
in the customers’ accounts. Different revenue
splitting models were created between

operators, banks and credit card companies,
as well as merchants.
The Philippines, a large developing country
with limited fixed infrastructure, but high
usage of mobile phones, has become a SMS
leader with low SMS charges, and early
adoption of m-payments.
The SMART system serves a large migrant
population. To send money home subscribers
use the SMS-based m-payment solution
called Smart-Load - ‘Smart money packages’
- to remit money to a bank account and then
to a Smart money account. This account has
features like person-to-person transfer, transfer
to retailers, multiple subscribers accessing one
account, airtime purchase and airtime transfer
to family and friends. International remittance
was added in 2007 with the help of banks and
overseas operators. Government and monetary
authorities supported the move.
China’s Yeepay e-payment solution is based
on IVR (Interactive Voice Response) call
centres; it is a telephone-based system that
transfers payments. China has also a gaming
and virtual money system - called Linden
Connect-World
An insight into the future
www.Connect-World.com
You are a decision maker;
Mobile payment
Mobileservices
Mobile systems
access
and QQ coin - which allow participants to Mobile-based services are growing rapidly
purchase online games and other items using in Asia Pacific; new ways to utilize mobile
virtual money. Roughly US$900 million is infrastructure and new business models are
in the virtual money market. The monetary emerging to drive the mobile services market.
authority and the People’s Bank of China are
barring trading of virtual money to buy real Mobile multimedia content services and Web
goods. 2.0 applications are becoming a reality. Some
applications start in developed countries and
Indonesia and India have also started move to developing countries, while other
m-payment services with government services like mobile payment progress the
support. Large numbers of overseas workers other way around. n
remit small amounts to rural areas, where
bank facilities do not exist, or to enjoy lower * in-Stat’s Mobile Social Networking and the
transfer costs than banks offer. Transfer Millennial Generation 2008 and IDC Asia/Pacific
facilities include account balance checking, (excluding Japan) Mobile Service 2008-2012
Forecast Update were referenced in this article.
and instant third-party transfers with SMS-
based confirmation to both parties. These
services have rapidly grown by over 35 per
cent.
Mobile TV and streaming
Thailand, China and other countries have
begun to launch mobile streaming service
in major cities, with major operators
creating partnerships with content vendors;
consumers have shown interest, but growth is
still slow.
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 33
 Virtual computing

Virtualization trends in ICT for business

by Andrew Dutton, General Manager - VMware Asia Pacific

Virtual computing refers to computing services available when and where needed, on whatever
scale is called for. Companies can make all their computing resources throughout the world
virtually available to their staff no matter where located. Cloud computing is virtual computing
available through the Internet for a wide variety of applications. Users can access their ‘own’
virtual desktop - even on a smartphone - wherever they are, and through it, get whatever secure
storage or high-end application processing facilities they need.

Andrew Dutton is the General Manager of VMware’s Asia Pacific and Japan region; he is responsible for strategic planning, business
development, sales, channels, services, finance and marketing. Mr Dutton brings more than 27 years of global management and sales
experience in various industries, including IT and financial services. Prior to VMware, Mr Dutton was Computer Associates’ (CA)
Senior Vice President and General Manager of International Business, responsible for the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) and
Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) regions. Mr Dutton also served as Senior Vice President and General Manager for BEA Systems EMEA.
Earlier, Mr Dutton held a number of senior management positions at IBM including as Vice President and General Manager for IBM’s
Asia Pacific Software Group. Mr Dutton was a member of IBM’s Senior Management Group. Mr Dutton’s earlier posts included Chief
Financial Officer and Director of Information Technology for Australia’s Norwich Union Financial Services Group, and Group Manager
of Business Development for Visa International’s Asia Pacific region.

Andrew Dutton holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Sydney University.

As the woes of the world economy extend
into 2009, governments and businesses will
be increasingly forced to do more with less.
This is one of the key value propositions of
virtualization, and as a result, virtualization is
increasingly at the top of the list of strategic
priorities for information technology (IT) and
communications organisations worldwide.
Many begin their virtualization efforts with
server consolidation to reduce hardware
power, cooling, and facilities expenses. Now,
organizations are continuing virtualization
with server consolidation and extend its use
to the desktop, storage and networking areas,
to provide more flexible and economical
business continuity, security, and application
of service level agreements.
Here are the ten top trends in virtualization
that I believe are worth watching out for in
2009:
Virtualization of the enterprise desktop
The desktop dilemma - deciding whether to
give employees thick or thin clients - will
begin to be resolved in 2009. Thick clients,
including fully loaded personal computers
(PCs) and laptops, provide employees with
a rich set of applications, but applications
distributed across thousands of PCs that
must be individually provisioned, updated,
patched and secured are a challenge to
manage. Thin clients are cheaper, more
secure, and more cost-effective to manage,
but traditionally have not been able to deliver
the richness, flexibility, or compatibility of
thick clients. Most businesses provide thin
clients only for employees, such as call centre
staff, who can be productive in this more
restrictive environment. New virtualization-
based approaches solve this dilemma by
delivering rich, personalized virtual desktops
to any device, thick or thin, but simplify
management by hosting virtual desktops in
the data centre. Virtualization is the essential
for efficient, manageable desktops in an
increasingly mobile world. In addition, better
remote display protocols and use of the local
machine’s computing resources create a better
user experience, and the combination of
online and offline modes will let employees
work while travelling or when without higher-
speed network access.
Virtualization-aware storage
Storage is critical to the virtual data centre;
advances in virtual storage will dramatically
increase the flexibility, speed, resiliency and
efficiency of virtual data centres in 2009.
New virtual storage solutions automate
handoffs between the virtualization platform
and the storage infrastructure, simplify
storage operations and maximize efficient use
of storage infrastructure. We expect solutions
that offer native array support for common
storage operations on virtual machines such
as replication and migration, thin provisioning
and de-duplication capabilities to optimize
storage usage - especially important for
desktops and virtual storage arrays solutions.
High-end application virtualization
A combination of hardware and software
advances will remove performance concerns
regarding the highest-end, most mission-
critical, applications in virtual environments.
New chip advances such as Intel Extended
Page Tables (EPT) and AMD Rapid
Virtualization Indexing (RVI) - are particularly
helpful for memory-intensive applications and
high-performance computing. In addition,
the ability to purchase applications as pre-
packaged virtual machines, and improvements
in the licensing and support policies offered
by Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), will
continue to drive the trend towards application
virtualization.
Virtualization of multiple data centres
Increasingly, global companies will
dynamically virtualise their computing

34 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 35
 Virtual computing
capacity across multiple data centres. British
Telecom (BT), for example, is building a
next-generation, cloud computing-ready
infrastructure that pools business processes,
applications, IT infrastructure, user access,
and the network in a self-healing, automated,
service-oriented infrastructure with integrated
service-level management and built-in
business continuity. The system provides
dynamic geo-balancing across BT’s data
centres in North America, South America,
the UK, Europe, Asia and Australasia. On
the user level, it enables virtual desktops to
follow users as they travel. On the enterprise
level, it enables workloads to be automatically
redistributed to meet capacity needs and take
advantage of eco-friendly locations where
electricity can be tapped at much lower costs.
This level of data centre orchestration will
become increasingly common, driven at first
by the disaster recovery needs and the need
to instantly migrate workloads from one site
to another in the event of a failure. We are
now seeing the first signs of follow-the-sun
virtual machine migration and orchestrated
use of secondary and off-premise data centres
for peak loads. This will naturally ramp up
to enable cloud computing services that can
import and export industry-standard virtual
machines to provide additional computing
capacity on short notice.
Virtualization-aware networking
Major network and virtualisation software
vendors are working together to deliver
joint data centre solutions that improve the
scalability and operational control of virtual
environments. Distributed virtual software
switches will be an integrated option in this
sort of infrastructure. In parallel, companies
are collaborating to integrate virtual desktop
solutions with application delivery networking
solutions to improve the performance of
virtual desktops delivered across wide-area
networks (WANs). Networking vendors are
now optimizing for virtualization network
traffic, remote display protocols are becoming
more effective, and networking management
tools will monitor and manage at the virtual
machine-level.
Virtualization in smartphones
The benefits of virtualization will extend
to mobile phones. Ultra-thin hypervisors
will provide a thin layer of mobile
phone embedded software optimized to
run efficiently on low-power, memory-
constrained, mobile phones. Hypervisors
will decouple applications and data from
the underlying hardware; this will help
handset vendors accelerate time to market
and pave the way for innovative applications
and services. Today, handset vendors spend
significant time and effort getting new
36 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009
phones to market due to the use of multiple
chipsets, operating systems, and device
drivers across their product families. Today,
the same software stack cannot be used in all
phones; it must be ported separately for each
platform. Virtualization will enable vendors
to deploy the same software stack on a wide
variety of phones regardless of the hardware.
Virtualization for mobile phones will also
enable end users to run separate profiles
for personal use and for work on the same
phone. This will improve both the security
and cost-effectiveness of mobile phones as
communication and computing devices.
Virtualization-focused security
McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro recently
demonstrated new virtualization-focused
security solutions, leading a growing trend.
Traditional firewall, Intrusion Detection
Systems (IDS), and virus detection offerings
are now shipping as virtual machines.
Customers are increasingly utilizing
trusted platform modules (TPMs) to attest
to embedded hypervisors. There are now
application programming interfaces (APIs)
that allow third-party products provide
security for virtual machines by deploying
a single instance of an antivirus application
per physical host - instead of one per virtual
server - and this is driving security advances
for virtualized environments.
Management tools for virtual data centres
Today, there are management tools for a wide
range of virtualization management operations,
including virtual machine discovery and
configuration management, monitoring,
performance management, provisioning,
and resource management. These products
- combined with standardized, hardware-
independent virtual machine containers
that can be easily changed, moved and
manipulated - have helped some virtualization
users automate many IT processes and
increase data centre management productivity
by two to three times compared to physical
environments. Going forward, additional
APIs and integration technologies (e.g., user
interface plug-in architectures) that facilitate
the integration of management functions
into virtualization platforms will enable
end-to-end management processes spanning
heterogeneous data centre environments,
a wide variety of application stacks, and
physical and virtual use cases. This is coming
quickly, as leaders such as BMC, CA, HP and
IBM have all announced such products.
Green data centres drive virtualization
Power and cooling are critical data centre
concerns. “Upward-spiraling infrastructure
demands and increasing energy costs mean
that the energy proportion of IT costs could
double by 2012,” said a recent Gartner
research report (“U.S. Data Centers: The
Calm Before the Storm,” 25 September
2007). “By 2011, more than 70 per cent of
U.S. enterprise data centers will face tangible
disruptions related to floor space, energy
consumption and/or costs”.
Server consolidation, through virtualization, is
one of the best ways to reduce power usage, as
well as greenhouse gas emissions. Many users
are able to run 15 or more virtual machines on
a single server, thus increasing the utilization
of servers from 10-15 per cent (the average
utilization rate for non-virtualized servers)
to 70-80 per cent. With fewer physical
servers, users save 70-90 per cent in energy
consumption. This means greener IT, cutting
data centre power consumption by 70-90 per
cent and radically reducing CO2 emissions.
Each server removed saves around 7,000
kilowatt hours (kWh) of power and eliminates
four tons of CO2, which is equivalent to
taking 1.5 cars off the road or planting 55
trees in a year. Going forward, customers will
leverage virtualization for even greater power
savings through dynamic management of
resources. When a cluster of virtual machines
needs fewer resources, distributed power
management (DPM) features consolidate
workloads and puts hosts in standby mode to
reduce power consumption. When workloads
increase resource requirements, DPM brings
powered-down hosts back online to ensure
service levels are met.
Virtualisation and the cloud
The IT industry is moving toward a vision
of cloud computing, and virtualization
is the infrastructure on which it is being
built. Enterprise data centres are starting
to evolve into highly automated private
clouds. The pooling of computer resources
on a virtualization platform essentially turns
the pooled resources into a single, giant
computer. Idle computing capacity can
be sold on the Internet to public clouds or
cloud services providers, or access to extra
computing capacity can be outsourced as
needed on a just-in-time basis. Standards
are the key to the success of public clouds;
they provide compatibility at the virtual
machine layer for easier entry and exit from
the cloud, and standards make it possible to
move applications in and out of public clouds
without modification. In 2009, these advances
will accelerate to enable companies both large
and small to safely tap computer capacity
inside and outside their firewalls - how they
want, when they want, and as much as they
want - to ensure quality of service for any
application they want to run, internally or
as an outsourced service, when additional
capacity is required. n
 Mobile payment
Mobile
Infrastructure systems
access
collaboration

Collaboration - the catalyst for growth

by Wilfred Kwan, Chief Technology Officer, Pacnet

Few expect a network service provider to cover the world alone. Carriers are tuning to
collaborative strategies in order to drive continued growth of the industry through challenges
of the global economy. Recent studies show strategic partnerships are considered the best way
to finance big projects and bring needed expertise onboard. During the telecom boom earlier
this decade, many collaborative projects were driven by investors, not users; today, partners
with a vested interest in the services provided are sought.

Wilfred Kwan, Pacnet’s Chief Technology Officer, is responsible for Network Operations, Engineering, IT, and Product Management. Mr
Kwan previously served as Chief Technology Officer at Asia Netcom, and earlier as Senior Vice President of Network Operations in Asia
for Global Crossing. Mr Kwan’s two decades of experience in the telecom industry ranges from software development and integrated
circuit design to product development, network planning and operations. Mr Kwan joined ANC from WorldCom Asia Pacific, where he
was the Director of Operations. Mr Kwan has also held various management positions with Global One, Lucent Technologies, Motorola
and Nortel. Mr Kwan is currently a member of OFTA’s advisory committee in Hong Kong.

Wilfred Kwan earned both his BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and has an MS in Financial
Management from the University of London.

A quick glance at the current
telecommunications landscape reveals that
the age where one global service provider
can do it all is clearly history. It is evident
that the new business paradigm embraced by
the telecommunications industry is that of
partnership and collaboration.
Collaboration for growth
David Reed, the American computer scientist,
who was involved in the early development of
the fundamental TCP/IP networking protocol,
captured this shifting business paradigm
in what is now known as Reed’s Law. By
allowing users to form groups, the utility of
large networks can scale exponentially with
the size of the network.
The benefits of Reed’s Law have
been embraced by today’s business
leaders, including those involved in
telecommunications and technology.
Findings from Frost & Sullivan’s recent
CEO survey show that 58 per cent of
respondents acknowledged that forming
‘strategic partnerships’ is a key strategy for
success. Yet beyond simply acknowledging
and recognizing this strategy, 54 per cent of
respondents noted that it was one of their
top three strategies for future growth. These
CEOs were certainly not alone in their views
on collaborating for growth.
According to an article entitled, “Which
kind of collaboration is right for you?”, in
the December 2008 edition of the Harvard
Business Review, the authors, Gary P. Pisano
and Roberto Verganti, said “no companies
innovate alone” and acknowledged how
a variety of companies have worked with
partners to create new technologies, products
and services. For example, they cited how
technology giant IBM has successfully set up
a number of consortia with other companies
to develop next-generation semiconductor
technologies.

Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 37

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38 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 www.upaexpo.com

UPA MI 3.indd 1 11/05/09 12:07:11 PM


“The rise of digital content is also bringing about collaboration with new parties in subsea
infrastructure rollouts. With the amount of digital content that we are seeing on our networks
growing, it is no surprise that the digital content giants are looking for bigger, faster pipes.”
Against the backdrop of the current economic
crisis, strategic partnerships are even more
important to a company’s growth strategy.
Subsea collaboration
The idea of partnership and collaboration
to roll out new infrastructure might
not be an entirely new concept in the
telecommunications industry; in the past many
international projects have been collaborative.
Yet, in the subsea cable industry, many of the
cables built at the start of the decade were
owned by standalone companies.
If you look back at subsea cable investments
during the heady days of telecoms from 1998
to 2001, you could easily find more than
ten cable projects that cost more than US$1
billion each, which were funded by single,
standalone companies.
Nevertheless, there is a stark difference in
today’s subsea cable investments. Subsea
cable projects today are definitely more
collaborative and rational. Just look at the
US$7 billion or so that is being spent on new
cable projects in the coming three years and
you will see that almost all of them are being
built by consortia with three or more partners.
Earlier in 2008, Bharti Airtel, Global Transit
Ltd, Google, KDDI, Pacnet and SingTel,
announced that we were partnering to build
Unity, a new US$300 million trans-Pacific
subsea cable connecting Chikura, Japan to the
west coast of US.
John Hibbard, a telecommunications industry
consultant, pointed out that comparing
consortia subsea cable projects back then and
now, a key difference is in the constituents
of the consortia. He noted that at the start
of this decade, prompted by enormous
technological developments in photonics,
many entrepreneurs, leveraging the buoyancy
of Wall Street, initiated submarine cable
projects. More often than not, cables were
then owned by parties who were not in the
telecommunications sector but, frequently,
from the finance industry. This meant that
they were not a source of traffic, and these
AT
E projects were seen as a potential for profit
rather than the provision of infrastructure.
Today, there are very few cables owned
:11 PM
by parties who are not carriers or service
providers who use the cable for their
own traffic as well as that of others. As a
consequence, there is now less fragility
as the cables are effectively infrastructure
investments.
The rise of digital content is also bringing
about collaboration with new parties in
subsea infrastructure rollouts. With the
amount of digital content that we are seeing
on our networks growing, it is no surprise
that the digital content giants are looking for
bigger, faster pipes. The Unity cable project,
for example, has Google as a partner. This is
just the beginning; we expect to see greater
interest from digital content providers,
especially those which deliver a lot of digital
video content, in collaborative infrastructure
projects.
Diversity and reach
Natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in
January 2008 that caused damage to subsea
cables and interrupted Internet connectivity
in the Middle East and India, highlight the
need for network diversity and redundancy.
The Taiwan earthquake at the end of 2006
which damaged most of the region’s subsea
cables, was another incident that led carriers
to shift their focus towards the need for
network redundancy to minimize the business
and economic impact of such disasters in the
region. The increasing reliance of modern-
day commerce upon subsea infrastructure, is
forcing enterprises to take into account the
huge impact that network incidents may have
on their returns.
According to a Gartner study, each hour of
network downtime costs large corporations
an estimated US$42,000. Since a typical
business experiences an average of 87 hours
of downtime a year, this results in a total
loss exceeding US$3.6 million a year. As a
result, carriers have been busy carving out
collaborative partnerships through Network
to Network Interface (NNI) interconnections
to extend the reach and reliability of their
networks.
For example, the EAC-C2C subsea cable
infrastructure that provides connectivity
to major cities in South-east and East Asia
connects users almost anywhere in the
Mobile Regulatory
payment
Mobile
Infrastructure systems
access
collaboration
affairs
world - from Paris to South Africa to New
York - by collaborating with carrier partners
globally and delivering traffic through NNI
interconnections. Likewise, carriers from
other parts of the world partner to leverage
EAC-C2C in reaching key countries across
Asia.
Beyond infrastructure
Beyond building new subsea cable
infrastructure, carriers and service providers
are taking partnerships to a whole new level
by rolling out new services made possible
by collaboration. Few carriers now try to
do it all on their own. They realize that by
collaborating with technology partners, they
are able to roll out new services with state-of-
the-art technology and bring them to market
faster than they would be able to do alone.
By collaborating with industry partners to
rapidly roll out industry-leading services
and by deploying application acceleration
devices in high-speed network, customers can
immediately enjoy the advantages of state-
of-the-art application acceleration appliances
on the network, without worrying about
compatibility and configuration issues.
Looking ahead
As pointed out by Mr Hibbard, collaboration
is certainly not a strategy that can be force
fed. Collaboration only works effectively
when there is win-win outcome for the
collaborators. Unless fairness and equity
exist, more energy will be spent on managing
relationships to the detriment of the project.
Collaborators must want to join willingly
rather than have them join grudgingly because
they see no other alternative. However,
given the frequent announcements of new
partnerships in telecommunications and
technology, collaboration continues unabated
despite the economic climate.
The possibilities for collaboration are truly
limitless and we certainly expect to see new
partnerships within the carrier industry, as
well as new collaborative efforts beyond this
space in the coming year. n
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 39
 Network sharing

Network sharing in Asia

by Simon Kong, Business Development Director, Asia Pacific region, Omnix Software

Operators look to share network resources by partnering with competing operators to lower
their expenditure on network infrastructure - currently more than 60 per cent of their costs. In
Asia, government regulations and competitive reluctance are delaying the full-scale adoption
of network infrastructure sharing. Despite these obstacles, the current economic climate and
slowing revenue growth is making network sharing an attractive proposition. Sharing will
let operators focus on branding and customer service and accelerate the introduction of new
services and networks.

Simon Kong is the Business Development Director for Omnix Software Ltd in the Asia Pacific region. Before joining Omnix, Mr Kong was
South East Asia Regional Sales Director for Commscope Solutions. Over the past 18 years Mr Kong has worked on landmark projects
such as the KLCC Twin Towers, the Singapore Housing Development Board Complex and Bangkok’s New International Airport. Building
Industry Consulting Services International (BICSI) appointed Mr Kong as its South East Asia District Secretary, before that, he was
appointed by the Malaysian Commission for Multimedia and Communication to draft the Malaysian Premise Cabling Standards.

Simon Kong holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Microelectronics and Computer Science from Tunku Abdul Rahman College in Malaysia.

With the current economic climate taking
its toll around the world, mobile network
operators are considering new tactics to
improve customer service and reduce churn
while also lowering costs. One idea that has
struck a chord with operators worldwide
is network sharing, which sees competing
operators partnering to lower their expenditure
on network infrastructure.
Network sharing can take many forms and
may involve the sharing of either active or
passive network assets. Active infrastructure
sharing includes all the electronic components
deployed by operators, such as microwave
radio equipment, switches, antennas
and transceivers for signal processing
and transmission. Meanwhile, passive
infrastructure sharing refers to ‘dumb’
network assets like towers, air-conditioning
equipment, generators, technical premises and
pylons.
Unfortunately, active infrastructure sharing
has proven notoriously difficult to implement.
Operators in the Asian market, particularly in
high-density populations like India and China,
have competed for customers over many years
on the quality of their networks and many still
regard their RAN (radio access network) as
a core source of advantage. Some countries
have already banned RAN sharing, fearing
that too much cooperation between operators
could reduce competition.
However, passive network sharing has the
potential to deliver huge cost savings to
Asian mobile operators by reducing both their
OpEx (operational expenditure) and CapEx
(capital expenditure). Effective passive
network sharing can reduce the number of
new masts that operators need to deploy,
while also spreading the cost of any new sites
that do need to be created between multiple
companies. This consolidation of network
infrastructure between operators lowers
OpEx, by reducing the total number of masts
in operation.
Yet, if there were no difficulties associated
with network sharing, operators across Asia
would already have instituted it. One problem
is that the business case for network sharing
remains to be proved and it is difficult to
accurately predict since operators are not
legally permitted to know the exact details of
each other’s OpEx. Even so, Europe and the
USA have seen a rapid growth in network
sharing agreements, while in Asia the uptake
of network sharing has been held back by a
number of additional factors.
In many Asian countries, the incumbent fixed
line and mobile operators, such as Telkomsel
in Indonesia, are either partially or completely
government owned. Additionally, these
government-owned operators tend to have
a majority share in their country’s network
infrastructure. While Western operators

40 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009


“Network sharing can be an important way for operators to cope cost-effectively with the
increasing demand on their networks. In Malaysia, mobile Internet and mobile broadband
usage are predicted to skyrocket during 2009, with four million subscribers already
accessing mobile Internet - 195 thousand through mobile broadband services.”
would welcome network sharing agreements,
since it would allow them to rapidly expand
their coverage in Asia, government linked
operators in Asia want to have full control of
their network infrastructure for fear of losing
ground to these new competitors. The rapidly
expanding and lucrative Asian market also
means that domestic operators do not need
to give ground to foreign telcos in exchange
for investment. For example, China Telecom
earned US$3.3 billion in profits last year,
with total revenue of US$25.8 billion. This
success has given many Asian operators the
freedom to heavily restrict foreign investment
in domestic networks. The Spanish giant
Telefónica has struggled to acquire even a
ten per cent stake in China Netcom, while
Vodafone’s stake in China Mobile is only just
over three per cent.
However, network sharing in the Asian
market saw an immediate boost with the roll-
out of 3G services in countries like China.
Both Western and Japanese operators, who
had already implemented 3G services in their
home markets, were able to provide China
with essential technology and experience
and this allowed them to make in-roads
into the Chinese market. This has left many
Asian telecoms regulators now facing
increasing pressure from foreign mobile
operators with lucrative 3G contracts for
network infrastructure sharing in light of the
deregulation of the telecoms industry. This
situation is complicated still further by the
strict laws in many Asian countries governing
the ability of foreign organisations to own
land.
The pace of the uptake of network sharing in
Asia will depend on individual governments.
As with the issue of number portability, Asian
markets will need governments to push the
agenda forward and the incumbent operators
will follow. Unfortunately, this is likely to be
a complex process. For example, in Malaysia
the drive towards network sharing will need
to come from the top, since it involves many
agencies or ministries of the government;
and touches on disparate issues like land
ownership, telecommunications and housing.
Political issues aside, Asian operators also
face a number of technical challenges in
implementing any network sharing solution.
The merging of networks is made more
complex for Asian operators because they
will want to decommission a roughly even
number of towers, so that one of them does
not risk severely compromising their network
capacity. For example, if two operators have
200 towers in a region, they may want to
merge to a network of 110 towers with both
of them decommissioning roughly 45 sites.
The greater complexity of a shared network
will also result in higher infrastructure
management costs. All the systems that
manage considerations like lease payments,
network compliance and maintenance have
to become both transparent and cross-
organisational when two or more operators
are involved.
This raises another complication with
network sharing: it is illegal for operators
to share any information that might provide
a competitive advantage, such as lease
costs. Asian operators will therefore require
bespoke asset management software that can
process confidential information from both
parties and provide the necessary answers
based on undisclosed figures. This software
needs to understand who is allowed to know
what information, while also comparing the
old OpEx costs with the new OpEx costs and
the increased CapEx - thus allowing both
operators to monitor the value of network
sharing. This type of system necessitates
that operators already possess some form of
estates management software that can provide
an accurate register of what their assets
are. Asset management software can also
be indispensable in advising the automatic
planning tools that are used to calculate the
optimum configuration for the new network
structure and the order in which it should be
reconfigured.
The size and geography of individual
Asian countries can even come into play in
determining how quickly network sharing
will become common in Asia. Countries such
as Singapore or isolated subsections of larger
nations, like Hong Kong, will see a rapid
increase in network sharing simply because
land is scarce and the size of the country limits
the number of sites that need to be managed.
On the other hand, countries like India and
China are still moving towards providing
complete mobile coverage. However, if these
countries could show the way in adopting
network sharing, mid-sized Asian countries
like Malaysia will almost certainly follow
suit. Additionally, once Long Term Evolution
(LTE) reaches the Asian market, operators
may be forced to consider network sharing,
Mobilesystems
Mobile Regulatory
payment
Network access
sharing
affairs
simply because implementing this technology
will require more mast sites.
Network sharing can be an important way
for operators to cope cost-effectively with
the increasing demand on their networks.
In Malaysia, mobile Internet and mobile
broadband usage are predicted to skyrocket
during 2009, with four million subscribers
already accessing mobile Internet - 195
thousand through mobile broadband services.
Similarly, China and India will see massive
increases in mobile broadband uptake as
their huge rural populations are granted
mobile coverage; India has already seen a
167 per cent surge in mobile Web browsing
in January 2009 compared to the previous
year. The Asia-Pacific region is forecast to
account for about 33 per cent of all mobile
data traffic by 2013 due to the proliferation
of wireless broadband-enabled laptops and
mobile broadband handsets with higher than
3G speeds. A single high-end phone (such
as an iPhone or Blackberry) generates more
data traffic than thirty standard mobile phones
and smartphone sales in the Asia-Pacific
region have recorded a 2.3 per cent sequential
growth, reaching 7.5 million unit sales in
2008.
Therefore, despite the obstacles to network
sharing in Asia, the current economic
climate and slowing revenue growth is
likely to increase the incidence of operators
participating in network sharing. It is
an attractive proposition: with passive
infrastructure sharing, operators are expected
to save close to 30 per cent on CapEx and
OpEx. Currently passive infrastructure
accounts for about 60 per cent of an operator’s
cost of doing business and, while the falling
price of electronic components is lowering the
cost of active infrastructure, rising property
and material prices is increasing the capital
cost of passive infrastructure.
As network sharing and outsourcing increases
throughout Asia, operators will increasingly
be able to focus more on branding and
customer service to differentiate from the
competition. By reducing the financial
burden on Asian operators, network sharing
can also accelerate the introduction of new
services and facilitate the deployment of new
networks, while lowering barriers to market
entry and reducing call tariffs. This is then, by
any measure, a very positive step forward for
subscribers. n
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 41
 Network support

Product innovation, performance and support

by Adam Judd, Senior Vice President for Asia Pacific, Juniper Networks

Technology sprawl, the uncontrolled proliferation of brands of servers, software, systems and
devices increases the complexity of data centres, uses data centre space inefficiently, increases
energy consumption, reduces performance, security and reliability and bites into profits.
Equipment vendors do wonders with technology, new product development, and sales, but
services to support these new products are often lacking, and their basic technical strategies
are fragmented. Users need high-level professional support from vendors for overall guidance
regarding operation, maintenance and advanced service needs.

Adam Judd is Juniper Networks’ Senior Vice president of Sales and Operations for Asia Pacific. Mr Judd joined Juniper Networks as part
of Juniper’s acquisition of Unisphere Networks, where he co-founded its APAC operations and served as vice president for the theatre.
He formerly held APAC management roles with Bay Networks and Nortel Networks.

Customers constantly demand innovation in
services to improve performance and features
and to lower complexity and cost. Yet, despite
dazzling technological innovations, advances
on the services side have not kept pace with
product development. There is a growing
gap between products, services and support.
This gap contributes to a network innovation
lag, impedes productivity and generates
inefficiency and overhead. However, a new
paradigm for proactive vendor services can
overcome these problems.
Market outlook
Typically, the telecommunications
environment is cluttered and decentralized.
A mixed bag of hardware, together with
a complex web of software, creates a
virtual labyrinth of protocols, devices and
applications. As a result, network operators
bog down trying to find cost-effective
solutions to the following problems:
• Growth/technology sprawl - Keeping
pace with product advancement has resulted
in the uncontrolled proliferation of mixed
brands of servers, systems, and devices.
Even normal growth causes a physical space
crunch in the data centre and increases energy
consumption. More networking, server and
storage equipment eats into floor space,
energy resources and, ultimately, profits.
• Infrastructure complexity - Underlying
the physical issues of technology sprawl
are its less tangible side effects: Growing
complexity in the data centre slows
application performance, delays business-
enabling applications, and hinders innovation.
In addition, servers, systems, and devices may
be running different operating systems and
using different management tools, requiring
additional training and software to make new
pieces of equipment work with one another
and with the existing network. Of all the
challenges businesses are facing, complexity
may be the most noteworthy because it
impedes efforts to improve performance and
reduce costs.
• Systems and software - Overburdened
networks lack visibility across protocols,
systems, devices, and applications. This
problem, compounded by the excess of
systems and applications, aggravates the
management problem, increases the chance
of human error and further reduces network
efficiency.
• Security - Increasing demand for network
access, including remote and mobile access,
leaves organizations vulnerable to human
error and security breaches, potentially
compromising the privacy of millions.
Security flaws are likely to continue, since
one consequence of technology sprawl is a
lack of consistent policies and the inability to
apply, enforce, and integrate policies across
different devices, networks, and systems.

42 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009


“Customers already know what to expect from the conventional service model: it is
reactive, and it relies on customer input to identify problems, collect information, analyze
situations, and then call in partners and vendors. Network outages that degrade and damage
productivity, and downtime while resolving issues, result in staggering losses.”
• Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity
- Businesses cannot afford lapses in service
during system builds, network changes,
application updates, or emergencies. Data
centres require consistent, reliable protection
and replication. The current problematic
technological environment increases the
likelihood of network downtime. On top of
that, maintaining consistency requires costly
bandwidth, and must be managed efficiently
to balance performance and reliability with
cost-effective solutions.
• Virtualization - While virtualization
improves the efficient utilization of network
resources, it can also exacerbate all of the
previously mentioned problems by adding
complexity, especially when using a variety
of virtualization platforms in the environment.
Obstacles to simplifying data centres will
continue to mount because virtualization
places greater demands on QoS, imposes
low latency performance requirements, and
stresses data centres, leading to, inefficient use
of infrastructure resources, higher operational
costs, downtime, and increased security risks.
In the wake of all this technological
expansion, networking companies are
beginning to realize that they are trapped
by their own network creations. Despite
the staggering advances in fundamental
technologies, until now there have been
only modest improvements in services.
Many networking companies, including
product vendors and the service providers,
which implement the vendors’ products
and solutions, have only improved their
service capabilities incrementally because
they have had no avenue for true services
innovation. They have implemented basic
technical strategies that were fragmented and
opportunistic. They have been boxed in by the
complexities and cannot break through with a
competitive services advantage because they
did not see the connection to strategic services
offerings.
The solution
Customers already know what to expect
from the conventional service model: it is
reactive, and it relies on customer input
to identify problems, collect information,
analyze situations, and then call in partners
and vendors. Network outages that degrade
and damage productivity, and downtime while
resolving issues, result in staggering losses.
Most current service models are incapable of
effectively resolving these problems, but an
effective solution is on the horizon and some
companies are leading with a new approach.
The industry has long recognized the
importance of services and support, but
attention to these two crucial aspects has
historically lagged that of products, by
service providers, vendors, and vendors’ sales
channels. Primarily focusing on ever-newer
technological products will not be sufficient
to satisfy demand. Telecommunications
companies must build a bridge between the
products that already exist and enhanced
services and support, in order to derive the
most value from these products. This can
only happen when the industry adopts a fresh
paradigm of professional services.
Research and experience shed light on
what customers require from this new
service mode. A number of users invested in
virtualization to reduce costs, but are instead
experiencing the increased complexity that
virtualization imposes. They are ready to
invest in technology to improve data centre
performance, increase productivity, and
expand service delivery. Achieving these
goals and sustaining performance in the face
of growing workloads, managers require
rapid problem identification and resolution,
accessibility at all levels - application, system,
platform, and network - and a consistent,
user-friendly, provisioning interface with
which to access network and data centre
technology. In addition, companies cannot
focus solely on reducing costs; they must
also create enough space in the data centre to
support new applications that will leverage
their moneymaking capabilities. It may seem
difficult, at first glance, to resolve these
complexities, but experience shows that
customers want three things from networking
vendors: mitigation of risk, accelerated ‘time-
to-value’ and enhanced operational efficiency.
In short, users seek:
• professional services’ consultants to map
out the entire process, ensure the shortest
time-to-value, maximize return-on-investment
and reduce risk;
• maintenance services’ teams ensure
that in-house teams have the expertise to
continuously adopt new technology and
Mobile Regulatory
payment
Mobilesystems
Network access
support
affairs
manage change in the network - they need to
be available 24/7 on a global basis to address
operational efficiencies; and
• advanced services’ teams should be in
place to work at a higher level and ensure that
the network stays at peak performance, with
ongoing consulting and proactive services.
In response to these needs, a new breed of
proactive support services is coming to the
market. Vendors can serve as a catalyst to
raise the entire industry to the next level by
providing proactive, intelligent, support
services. This new category of services
will alleviate the problem of complexity by
incorporating the use of a single operating
system platform. A single operating system
platform can effectively integrate features and
management to maximize transparency and
control and address security concerns, while
increasing profitability and reducing costs.
The new wave of support services will
include self-analysis capabilities that can
store and track potential risks, proactively
notify customers of these risks, and provide
the information that assistance centres need
to open support cases and help resolve
problems. It is time for the customers to have
the power to determine their deployment
needs; this support model will allow users to
choose a particular level of engagement, from
simply passing information and updates to co-
branding with service and technology vendors.
Proactive services that can use virtualization
efficiently will manage multiple customers
from a single point so that separate customers
and their collected data and detected issues
can be managed through a single console.
Given the potential for disaster that
technology sprawl entails, it is clear that a new
direction in support services is long overdue.
Complexity must be combated with proactive,
virtualization-ready, single-operating-system
networks. The coming services paradigm
achieves this goal with personalized services
that proactively identify potential device
problems, accelerate their resolution, reduce
space needs in the data centre and, ultimately,
reduce cost while increasing profits. n
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 43
 Broadband standards

Standards for Broadband Convergence

by Robin Mersh, Broadband Forum Chief Operating Officer

Businesses depend upon broadband for their advanced applications. Industry standards that
keep up with changing technologies are fundamental to the development of high quality reliable
services. The Broadband Forum has long set the pace for the sector by providing the standards
that allow for the orderly merging of existing networks and new technologies into the hybrid
networks the market demands. By specifying access integration, network architectures and
management protocols they ensure service providers can engineer and support their multi-
access networks.

Robin Mersh is the Broadband Forum’s Chief Operating Officer and, as such, is the senior full time executive. He has worked in the
telecommunications industry for over 14 years. He started in sales and sales management for Cable & Wireless and then moved on to
BT.

Mr Mersh has worked in business development and alliance management for various OSS software companies in the United States,
mainly in network and service provisioning and activation for companies like Astracon, TTI Telecom and Evolving Systems.
Robin Mersh received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.

It’s 2009, and everyone is talking about
convergence. Each conversation is different
though as convergence has many layers and
aspects to be explored. At the Broadband
Forum, we are also talking convergence
- about how the rapidly emerging hybrid
network market demands new standards for
access integration, architecture conformity
and a single management protocol and
structure to ensure service providers can
easily engineer and support their multi-access
networks effectively.
Until very recently, the industry had a
relatively simple division of the market
between DSL and cable. By the end of 2008,
that picture was very different when fibre hit
a major milestone of more than 50 million
customers served, and it became very clear
that PON (passive optical networks) and
hybrid networks were alive and growing
exponentially.
As business and application requirements
drove more and more fibre and wireless into
the networks, it was clear that supporting
this growth would require new standards
for integrating the access transport into the
traditional network architecture especially at
the access aggregation point. Since September
2003, the Broadband Forum has been making
strides defining the global requirements for
the multiservice architecture (Technical
Report 58 [TR-058]) as well as developing
the architecture requirements for Quality of
Service (QoS) enabled IP networks (TR-059).
In April of 2006, the de facto standard for IP
Ethernet Access Aggregation was published
as TR-101. Migration to Ethernet Access
Aggregation - TR-101 provided the roadmap
for moving from ATM access aggregation
to an Ethernet-based architecture. This has
become a global standard for triple-play
deployments for residential and business

44 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009


customers that use DSL as the broadband
access technology. However, many of TR-
101’s architecture specifications are access
agnostic, and they are also widely used today
with other access technologies, especially
FTTx / PON (fibre to the ‘x’/PON).
TR-156 - GPON Access into TR-101 Access
Aggregation - was developed and approved
at the end of 2008; it brings one of the fastest
growing access options in line with TR-101.
Eagerly awaited, TR-156 strengthens the TR-
101 requirements as applied to GPON (gigabit
passive optical networks) by providing more
detailed and specific requirements. In order to
reduce operational complexity and maximize
equipment interoperability, a specified
subset of the GPON’s flexible configuration
arrangements facilitate the implementation
of TR-101’s VLAN (virtual local area
network) architecture options. Other parts
of this specification enable providers to take
full advantage of a GPON’s abilities, and to
ensure a seamless integration of GPONs into
traditional broadband networks.
The next area of importance in the hybrid
network environment is management and
support of the rapidly evolving digital home.
As more broadband intensive applications
took root, and the many user-to-many device
environment expanded, more PON was rolled
out and the management protocol originally
designed for DSL environments was called
upon to evolve as well to address PON and
to serve the array of new devices hitting the
market.
Customer WAN Management Protocol
(CWMP), more widely known simply as
TR-069, quickly became the management
protocol used by major service providers
around the world. This is because it is robust
and has a variety of key attributes, such as:
• access neutral, bi-directional SOAP/
HTTP-based messaging;
• bootstrap communication and device
discovery capabilities;
• ability to set or get configuration
information, diagnostics, status and
performance info;
• firmware/image management;
• alerts based on changes to specific
settings; and
• independent gateway data model in
common with TR-064, extensible to additional
devices and capabilities.
The benefits of TR-069 were also clear:
• empowered profitable and seamless
service deployment;
• higher layer protocol - network (and
device) agnostic;
• provided robust functionality;
• established well-defined extensibility
mechanisms;
• adhered to standard web technologies;
and
• applicable to full range of devices on
home network.
Though access-neutral, TR-069 was recently
enhanced with the release of TR-069
Framework for PON” TR-142. This provides
a framework for the remote configuration
and management of services of optical
network termination (ONT) devices with IP-
based services over PON and fibre access
technology.
This management protocol evolves with
the introduction of the latest devices, and
the Broadband Forum addresses these new
devices with data models that make each
device readily recognized as well as remotely
provisioned and managed via the TR-069
Auto-configuration Server (ACS) in the
provider’s network.
The Femto Forum, 3GPP and the Broadband
Forum recently released the world’s first
femtocell standard, officially published
by 3GPP, which is paving the way for the
production of standardized femtocells in
large volumes and enabling interoperability
between different vendors’ access points and
femto gateways. The new standard forms part
of 3GPP’s Release 8 and is interdependent
with Broadband Forum’s TR-069 extension;
Femto Access Point Data Model TR-196. It
incorporates a new data model for femtocells
developed collaboratively by Femto Forum
and Broadband Forum members.
Since TR-069 is already widely used in fixed
broadband networks and in set top boxes
(STBs), this will allow mobile operators to
simplify deployment and enable automated
remote provisioning, diagnostics checking
Mobile payment
Mobile
Broadband systems
Regulatoryaccess
standards
affairs
and software updates. The standard also uses
a combination of security measures including
IKEv2 (Internet Key Exchange v2) and IPsec
(IP Security) protocols to authenticate the
operator and subscriber and then guarantee
the privacy of the data exchanged.
This is just one of many new examples
of broadband convergence that is being
addressed, and the Broadband Forum is
positioned to continue to be at the centre
of next generation evolution. With a focus
on integration and simple, effective road-
ready solutions, the forum’s work empowers
providers around the world to make intelligent
infrastructure investment with the security of
mind to know that their management platform
can handle whatever comes next. n
Connect-World is
celebrating its 12th
anniversary
Through the years, Connect-
World’s authors told of the rise
of mobile, of fibre, of wireless
and of broadband; they told of
the dot.com meltdown, of
digital inclusion and conver-
gence, of standards and break-
throughs, the rise of IP and
the fall of switching and of the
regulatory turnaround.
In every issue of Connect-World
heads of state, ministers and
regulators, heads of
international institutions and
leaders of industry speak of
what the ICT revolution, as it
happens, means to the people
in their regions of the world.
www.connect-world.com
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 45
 Next-generation networks

Solutions for next-generation wireless

by Ben Cardwell, VP, Asia Pacific and China, Andrew Wireless Solutions

Fourth generation (4G) - LTE and WiMAX - networks address the limitations of 3G and are
currently in trials and rollouts. Operators expect 4G networks to handle more traffic at lower
cost. The new 4G infrastructure equipment uses considerably less energy and is ‘greener’ than
earlier networks. Infrastructure that optimises network performance and reduces management
costs will help maintain operator profitability in an increasingly competitive market. Careful
planning of both the backhaul network and indoor network coverage is essential.

Ben Cardwell is the Vice President of Asia Pacific and China for Andrew Wireless Solutions and is responsible for Andrew’s sales and
marketing, in the Asia Pacific and China region. An 18-year veteran of the telecommunications industry, Mr Cardwell previously was
director, Systems Engineering, Asia Pacific for Andrew. Prior to joining Andrew, Mr Cardwell served in various leadership positions
within Research & Development, Product Management, Systems Engineering, and Field Sales with UTStarcom, Ericsson, and 3Com.

Mr Cardwell graduated from Davidson College, North Carolina, with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics. He holds an MBA from
Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.

Fourth generation (4G) networks are
positioned as the next generation of wireless
networks; they can more efficiently deliver
truly high-performance applications like
multi-media, full-motion video, and other
interactive communication modes. The main
impetus for the new network infrastructure
is that the current 3G networks have several
things working against them:
• multiple standards that make it difficult to
roam and interoperate across networks;
• 3G is based on WAN technology and is
difficult to adapt to LAN or cell-based traffic;
• limited bandwidth;
• newer modulation schemes that cannot be
retrofitted are now available; and
• 3G is not a full digital packet network
that utilizes IP with converged voice and data
capability
4G was developed to address all the
limitations of 3G and it has seen much
acceptance in the market, as evident in the
numerous Long Term Evolution (LTE) and
WiMAX trials and rollouts. However, to
roll out 4G networks, you need 4G solutions
to make these advanced networks work.
The new 4G radio frequency and network
solutions need to be agnostic in approach to
standards, frequencies and technologies. In
particular, operators are looking at:
• ways to reduce costs while increasing
network growth;
• how to incorporate environmentally
friendly solutions into the network; and
• how to deploy LTE and WiMAX the right
way, the first time.
Operating cost issues
Today, reducing operating costs is critical to
the health of an operator’s business. There are
some new cabinet and tower based solutions
in the market - including filters, amplifiers,
antennas, repeaters and fully integrated base
station RF offerings - covering various LTE
frequencies. These are currently available for
customer evaluation and should be market-
ready when LTE begins initial trials and
deployment in some markets later in 2009.
Broad deployment of LTE should commence
during 2010 and 2011. Similarly, WiMAX-
enabled solutions, including antenna and
cable products are currently in active use in
live network applications.

46 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009


“Wireless operators deploying next generation technologies will be evaluating upgrades to
their backhaul networks to handle the traffic from bandwidth-intensive communications, a
process simplified by next generation microwave planning software solution.”
While these products are fully functional,
operators need to look at their networks from
a management point of view and consider
solutions that manage and optimize the
network and help limit site maintenance
and staffing. Imagine having a remote cell
site control and monitoring solution that
remotely audits network performance, sends
alerts, and provides operators unprecedented
control over remote electrical tilt antennas,
amplifiers, thermostats, batteries and power
levels. Imagine also, antenna systems that
continuously re-balance traffic across all
sectors or mobile localisation centres that help
operators cost-effectively grow their networks
with location-based services.
With today’s intense cost pressures, operators
are looking for innovative technologies to
help manage such concerns - not just to
enable wireless communications, but to make
them better and more profitable.
How about ‘green’?
Making next generation networks better and
more profitable also means ‘taking the Green
road’. Responsible corporate citizenship aside,
operators are looking at the savings obtained
by reducing their environmental impact.
For example, there is an increasing interest in
hydrogen fuel cell cabinets, which eliminates
the need for lead acid batteries and diesel
generators, and in integrated cabinets with
high-efficiency cooling technologies that
drastically reduce energy consumption.
The use of high efficiency power amplifiers,
which almost double current efficiency
levels and minimize energy loss to heat, has
a significant impact on operating costs while
minimizing the environmental impact.
Next-Gen planning
Wireless operators deploying next generation
technologies will be evaluating upgrades to
their backhaul networks to handle the traffic
from bandwidth-intensive communications,
a process simplified by next generation
microwave planning software solution.
The new solutions are designed to help
network engineers easily deploy microwave
links by analyzing, designing, optimizing
and maintaining a comprehensive database
of their network. This means that wireless
operators can minimize expenses by getting
the most productivity from their engineering
resources and avoid costly mistakes during
the planning process. In addition, the new
solutions enable efficient use of available
spectrum by limiting interference in congested
areas, and effectively future-proofing against
wasted spectrum in the backhaul networks
that support high data rates.
As part of their evaluation of LTE and
WiMAX technologies, operators are
evaluating the ability of their backhaul
networks capabilities to support the higher
data rates these 4G technologies generate.
Those who need new microwave backhaul
networks - whether it is 50 links or over
40,000 - will find the new solutions provide
robust tools for effectively planning,
optimizing and managing their spectrum.
Wide-area planning aside, what is interesting
for the market are the introduction of products
such wireless drive-test system and spectrum
management solutions, that are specifically
developed to support operators with their
location planning, deployment and testing.
The new wireless test-drive systems make
designing and testing indoor wireless
coverage systems easier. For example, a
portable transmitter imitates the wireless
base station signals by broadcasting radio
frequency (RF) signals that facilitate indoor
coverage measurements. Network designers
can use the transmitter to pinpoint the best
antenna positions for indoor distributed
antenna systems (DAS) and as a low power
source for testing the design and functionality
of RF repeaters and base stations.
The test transmitter is a highly effective
tool for verifying in-building coverage,
DAS and repeater system design; it helps
customers maximize the performance of their
indoor networks prior to final installation.
These transmitters provide over 20 dBm
of transmission power and support GSM,
CDMA, UMTS and W-CDMA frequency
bands with user-settable channel and
message parameters. Users can configure
them via WiFi connections, selecting the
desired frequency and modulation schemes,
can set the parameters as needed. For ease
Mobile Regulatory
payment
Mobile
Next-generation systems
access
networks
affairs
of operation, the unit is switches between
transmit and standby modes via the Wi-Fi
connection.
Wireless test-drive systems let wireless
operators view their own, or their
competitors’, wireless voice and data
services from the subscriber’s perspective by
providing critical quality-of-service (QoS)
measurements. They help to identify failed
originations, abnormal ends, call setup time,
and call quality for improving voice service
levels. In addition, they also perform packet
data testing for analyzing upload/download
throughput speeds for data services and
field personnel can use these systems to
independently check network signal strength
and identify base station locations and
sectors.
Indoor network planning
There are now complete in-building wireless
testing solutions available. For network
designers, system installers and other in-
building wireless professionals wishing,
this can be an invaluable tool - it will help
avoid costly, time-consuming, design and
installation mistakes.
The system includes everything needed to
confirm the proper design and placement of
in-building antenna or repeater systems prior
to final installation, helping ensure optimal
indoor wireless coverage.
Network designers can use the system to
conduct initial surveys of a building, detect
ambient RF interference and signal weak
spots, which can then be accounted for in the
system design. In fact, the designer can walk
through the building taking RF readings, and
log the results on the building’s floor plan
for analysis and design of the in-building
coverage network. The transmitter can
even be used for temporarily transmitting
RF signals inside the building, in imitation
of expected signal levels and to help with
design.
Poor network quality is one thing that can ruin
a customer relationship. However, with these
tools at hand, operators can safeguard their
network investments and be certain they will
not unintentionally compromise the network’s
quality. n
Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 47
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48 n Asia-Pacific issue II 2009

 I WANT TO TAKE
THE LAST FIVE MINUTES
OF THE GAME WITH ME
What does it take to be a Televisionary?
A deep understanding of what people want and need.
An ability and expertise in making television more
individual and more personal. As a global leader
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Asia-Pacific issue II 2009 n 49

ConnectWorldJune09.indd 1 5/14/09 7:21:04 PM